


The Skulls of Xhia-Khum

by animefreak



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, The Mummy (1999), UFO | Gerry Anderson's UFO
Genre: F/M, Supernatural Elements, skulls - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 04:29:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 28,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6141517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animefreak/pseuds/animefreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed Straker is acting strangely with a house guest he doesn't recall inviting over while SHADO HQ is having a riotous time with the staff's collective libidos. In the end, there are alien doings afoot. Can Ed break out of the trap he's in, save HQ and keep his new love, or will he have to sacrifice again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking up with a guest

Ed Straker was distantly aware that there was someone else in the room with him. Instead of reacting instantly with determination, he sort of lazily drifted closer to the consciousness of the warm body next to him. It was only when the other body reacted with a flurry of action that he snapped awake and his hand dove for the gun that was his constant companion. 

The other body went thud on the floor, taking the sheet and blanket with it. There was a moment’s silence before rich feminine chuckles filled the room. “Well, that was a fail … I wonder if it was a flailing fail,” the still amused sounding voice seemed to be asking itself rather than its companion. She sat up, a head of thick, tousled Titian locks tumbling to faintly freckled shoulders. His gun at her temple caught her attention. Her reaction was unexpected as she merely tilted her head back until her golden amber eyes met his icy blue gaze. 

“Well. Well, well, well,” she repeated and twisted around so that his face was right side up. “Oh, my, my.” Her generous mouth curved into a smile revealing slightly crooked but blindingly white teeth. “I do wish I had some clue as to who the hell you are,” she finally spoke more than monosyllables. Her gaze drifted to the gun. “Glock. 9?” she looked back at him, supremely unruffled by having a gun pointed at her.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Kelsy O’Connell. And you are?” she asked.

“You don’t know?”

Her eyes roved over his pajama bottom clad body and back up to his face. “No.” The answer seemed slightly wistful, as though she wished she did. Then she looked thoughtful. “You don’t know a Kim Elkins, do you?”

“No.”

Her mouth switched to a playful pout. “Pity. This is exactly the sort of thing she’d do; putting a couple of very attractive people to bed with each other. I don’t recall a party last night, so I’m thinking this isn’t one of her pranks.” She leaned forward slightly and inhaled. “Hmm. No, we didn’t.” She sat back with a slight sigh indicating she regretted that they hadn’t before looking around the room curiously. “Now that’s odd.”

He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to know. He asked anyway. “What’s odd? Aside from waking up in bed with a woman I don’t know?”

“Clothing,” came her answer. 

Clothing? Curiosity piqued, he looked around to see what she meant. Nothing seemed out of place. Wait, if the object was to make them think something had happened … 

“Ed Straker, “ he finally introduced himself and lowered the gun. His clothing being neatly put away was one thing. There was no evidence Ms. O’Connell had worn clothing prior to arriving in his bed. His eyes wandered to the cleavage she wasn’t quite covering completely with the sheet she held. He pulled his gaze from there to her face where a smile greeted his now flustered look. 

“I don’t embarrass easily, “ she told him. “And naked bothers me not at all, most of the time. I usually like to know what I did with my clothes though.” She got to her feet with amazing grace, tossed the blanket back on the bed and proceeded to tug and tuck the sheet into a semblance of Romanesque decency. This left a lot of lightly freckled skin expose, and diminished not at all her very pneumatic bust line.

“How tall are you?” He asked as he had to almost lean back to look up at her.

She laughed at the question. “A shade under six feet. Galls my cousin Geoffrey no end. He takes after his greatgrandfather, short-ish and thin. Pure muscle and brain, of course.”  
“Geoffrey O’Connell?” Straker asked, filing the name for reference. 

“No. Geoffrey Carnahan. Writes all those pure bunk archeology site murder mysteries that are so popular. Rolling in filthy lucre.” Her smile took the sting out of the words. “Absolutely adore him, but his site bits are just not very accurate.”

He couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Why?”

She laughed in return and sat on the side of the bed. “Because the family is steeped in archeology Greatgranddad and Evie found Hamunaptra back in the twenties. They must have worked a dozen excavations or more and then Greatgrandmum wrote romances based on their adventures.”

Ed noticed her breathing was a little ragged as she gazed deeply into his eyes and ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip. He leaned toward her, inhaling her slightly spicy scent. What would one kiss hurt? She was, after all, leaning toward him as well when their mouths met, slowly, tentatively and then they were in each others arms and all over the bed. 

Sometime later, Kelsey’s head leaning on his shoulder, Ed took a breath of cool air and tried to figure out what exactly had just happened. How had he taken so much leave of his senses to … only that wasn’t how it felt to him. It was not so much a taking leave of his senses as opening them to their fullest extent. Security was going to hate him.

He looked over to meet sleepy amber eyes and wondered where this woman had been for all of his life before leaning in to kiss her full lips. Her response was like slowly stoking a fire, or maybe … Thought was replaced with reaction and action as they worked their way back to that very special place he’d thought long lost.


	2. Kitchen Explorations

Sometime later, Ed awoke with a feeling that something was missing. The other side of the bed was still warm, a few long red strands of hair clung to the sheet and to him. Kelsey was missing. He felt an urgency to know that she had not gone far. Slipping into his discarded pajama trousers, he padded silently through his house on bare feet. The carpet felt surprisingly good underfoot. So did the cool tile of the kitchen, which was where he found her. She was wearing one of his tailored shirts unbuttoned far past where he usually left them open. The generous curve of her breasts looked to be straining the button closure, especially when she breathed in. 

He took a moment to enjoy the view before clearing his throat to let her know he'd found her. The amber eyes looked up as she finished licking something brown and glutenous looking off a large spoon which she then shoved into a jar. It took her a moment to clear her mouth, the movements of her jaw and tongue inspiring him to interesting ideas, and hardness. 

“Peanut butter,” she finally declared. “I'm surprised it's still good, but it was unopened.” She squinted at the bottom of the jar. “Best before January 1983.” She chuckled slightly at his look. The she sobered and really stared at him. “You're not going to tell me it's 1983 … are you?” She looked worried at the thought. 

“1985,” he assured her. 

Apparently, that wasn't very successful as her wide eyes rounded in disbelief. “1985 … Oh, my.” She was on her feet again, giving him a great view of her long well muscled legs and just the hint of the under curve of her butt. 

He reviewed memories of that curve cupped by his hands as he pushed into her warm, wet, delicious … He shook his head. There was something off about that thought, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why a part of his brain was off having hysterics. Sex with Kelsey was an eye opener. The thought of what they'd already done brought him to almost painful arousal. Given where her eyes were fastened as she thoughtfully removed the last vestiges of peanut butter from the bowl of the spoon with long, lazy licks, it seemed she was also having fond memories.

Carefully, almost with the deliberation of a drunk trying to prove he isn't, she set the jar on the counter, twisted the top back on and tossed the spoon into the sink before moving to Ed and running the tip of her finger along the fabric tenting slightly over his arousal. “Hmm.” She slowly knelt before him before releasing his most pleasingly responsive cock and with equal deliberation taking the head into her mouth. Interesting, this way she could taste him and get a very good view of his lightly rippled abs and the curve of his pecs before ... hmmm, not a good angle. She decided concentrating on the cock in her mouth and maybe the muscles of his ass that she had in one hand to help steady things was a better idea than bending it in the wrong direction. 

Sliding out to the end, she decided the pajamas were just in the way. She was about to release her hold on him when a devilish little thought wandered along. Catching the sides of the front vent in her hands, she tugged to see how resistant the fabric was and heard that slight popping sound thread gives as it breaks. Holding on to him gently with a little more suction and a swirl of her tongue to distract him, she tore the fabric away from him. He lurched a little as the sudden draft and took a sharp breath as the edges of her teeth grazed his skin. Her fingertips against his scrotum nearly took that breath away.

Oh my … goodness probably had nothing to do with it. Her tongue swirled around the head of his erection sending positive vibrations of feeling through him. He felt like he was vibrating. Maybe he was. He really needed something to lean against. Oh, right. Wall. Wall was good as Kelsy moved to pull more of him into her mouth and added a bit of suction to the swirl and lick and … He lost track of the individual actions and fought to keep from making a grab for her hair to give him the purchase to thrust deeply into her mouth and throat. A part of his brain, always busy with trajectories, knew that she was not at the right angle for him to take charge of … of … o f … OH BOY!

Gently, he pushed her back and brought her to her feet. Oral was good, but he was far more interested in the other hot, wet opening right now. Grinning like the Cheshire cat, which probably should have worried him considering where his penis had just been, Kelsy turned and bent over the kitchen table. Being tall was so very nice sometimes. 

Ed plunged into her, impaling her on his ramrod stiff cock and stopped, reveling in the feeling before his impatient thrust need kicked in. He slid his hands up the inside of the shirt to cup her breasts, kneading the flesh gently before taking her already protuberant nipples between his thumbs and fingers to roll and pinch at them. 

Kelsy braced against the table, hips meeting his thrusts, taking him deep inside her where it felt oh so magnificently good. They moved together until the rhythm picked up. She groaned as she hit that point just before toppling over into the hot molten waves of muscular ripples that then drove him into his own orgasm. God that felt good! They collapsed together across the cool surface of the table top, breathing steadying, just enjoying being joined and holding on.

After a few minutes, Kelsy wiggled underneath him.

“What?”

“I want to turn over, silly. Front to back, OK. Face to face, much better, and if you can just stand up for a moment … I did not say step back or pull out,” she told him as he started to do both. 

Curious, he stopped. Maybe he should add contortionist to the list of Kelsy's abilities. Much like a ballet dancer, she straightened her legs, then with careful deliberation, turned slightly, using him as a pivot point, lifted her left leg, continued to turn and in one of those incredible maneuvers where the dancer performs the splits in the air, was facing up instead of down, her ankle resting on his shoulder. There was that feline grin again as she pulled her leg down his arm and lifted her other leg to wrap both of them securely around his hips, pulling him tight against her again. 

“Hi,” she said throatily while her internal muscles began an interesting dance of their own around him. 

He grinned back. Was she … oh, yes. She was doing exactly what he thought she was doing. He could feel his response to her movements, as he had to her well applied tongue. “I never knew the kitchen was so sexy,” he murmured as he leaned over her. 

“You'd be surprised,” she answered with a throaty laugh. “Hmm, yeah ...” She pulled him down further so she could reach his lips, then pushed him back up and looked down at the sweat soaked shirt between them. “Mmm … I'd say this shirt was expendable. What do you think?”

In answer, he reached for the opening and pulled. Buttons flew and he had full access to those glorious breasts and his favorite view of Kelsy from her shoulders to the now wet auburn curls over her mound. That he was firmly planted in her blocking his view of her legs disturbed him not as all as he dipped his head toward her breasts.

She caught his head in her hands. “Mouth first, tits later.”

Between her exploration of his mouth and his of hers and the revelation of what vaginal muscles could do to convince a spent cock that it was ready for action again, he was soon back in action. Slowly at first, sliding deep within and then pulling almost out, he watched his actions bring his companion to full arousal and then over into the incredible orgasms she experienced. Just watching her kept him going until finally, buried as deeply within as he could be, he gasped and groaned at his own explosion, shooting into her once again and leaving him drained, half conscious and resting on Kelsy's sweat slick body. 

She wrapped her arms around him and they lay there for a long lazy time until she realized he was half asleep. The chuckle resonated in her chest. He opened his eyes to slits to look at her, the graceful arch of her throat tempted him.”C'mon cowboy. You need some sleep.” Gently, she shifted off and away from him, levering him up with her body until he was on his feet again, before sliding off the table and leading him back to bed. 

They lay down on the cool sheets, side by side, then turned to spoon together, Ed's upper arm across her waist while the other rested under his pillow. Her hair tickled his nose and he pulled her back against him as he drifted off to a deep dreamless sleep. 

Kelsy dozed off and on. A part of her mind worrying at that 1985 comment. Something was wrong about this, no matter how much it all felt incredibly right, there was something off somewhere. 

She was in the museum in Cairo. She could hear her father and grandmother chattering on about something in the next room, but she sat at the foot of the statue, the stele actually, and gazed up into the face of a legend several thousand years dead. She fell in love again. At ten, it didn't seem unusual to fall for a face and legend any more than when the year before she'd found the pictures of Imhotep her great grandmother drew and fell in love with the doomed and cursed High Priest of Ancient Egypt. 

Five years ago, she met Imhotep, a much changed man after his time among the dead of the ancients. He still longed for his forbidden love, Ancksunamun, but it was now a bitter sweet longing as her reincarnation had abandoned him at Ahm Sher. 

“It wasn't her,” the then twenty-five year old Kelsy had told him.

“It was. She abandoned me.” 

She loved his accent, but he was wrong and she told him so and told him her reasons for believing this. “Somewhere, somewhen, the true reincarnation will happen. She may not be the physical woman you remember, but she will be the woman who loves you. Mila was a psychopath. Anck … Anck was an idiot on some levels.” In spite of everything, Imhotep sprang to her defense. “See, even you know she would not have left you. Of course, your love for each other is a little selfish, but you'll grow out of it.”

Her first love, and he was so dedicatedly taken. For a man of his looks and burning emotions to remain celibate was unheard of today. Imhotep flirted, but always the sadness remained and he did nothing more.

She shifted away from Ed. Relaxed in sleep, he looked younger, less driven. He lay on his back, mouth just a little open, wholly defenseless. Defenseless … somehow that was important but she could not get her brain to wrap itself around the importance. She needed a bath. Not a shower, not a quick cleaning, but a long, lazy restful bath and he had a tub long enough to accommodate her height comfortably.


	3. Waking up is hard to do

Kelsey found the bath relaxing. After the events of the day … She shook her head. Had it been only one day? She tried to string together the intense pleasures into time chunks and failed. There was something really fragged about this day. She had enjoyed herself. Just thinking about what she and Ed had done started to get her warmed up and thinking about slinking like a big cat into the bedroom and … She stood up, turned on the cold water and yelped as the shower head came on. Five minutes later, shivering and thinking clearly for the first time in what seemed like days, she stepped out of the tub and pulled a towel around her. 

“Ed,” she called seductively from the bathroom. 

He rolled over on the bed hearing the sound of his wanton companion drawing him in like a siren of ancient days. Well, the tub was one place they had not explored. He joined her in the chilly tiled bathroom and discovered that cold water was definitely an antidote to an amorous mood. She shoved him, without explanation, into the tub and turned on the cold water before backing away to let him flounder to his feet. By the time he had the water off and stood shivering but erect again, he was very angry.

“What the Hell?” he practically yelled as he yanked a towel off the rack and started drying off.

“Exactly. How do you feel? Do stop to think, how do you feel?”

“Pissed,” he answered with a word he seldom used normally. What was the matter with her? Wait. He frowned at her. Although he probably knew every centimeter of her body by now, he really didn’t know her. The frown deepened. “How long?”

“I’m thinking about three days, given what we’ve done. Takes a finite amount of time and we did … uhm … take our time about it. Don’t get any closer,” she warded him off with a hand as well as words.   
“Space. We need space between us. We don’t need to get … erm … side tracked. “ She backed into the bedroom and then over to the far wall, still clutching the wholly inadequate towel. 

“Three days? Why hasn’t anyone called?” He wondered aloud as he finished toweling off and pulled on a terry cloth robe to warm up. He slid his feet into his slippers and frowned at Kelsy.

“Are you sure they haven’t?” she countered. “Voice mail?”

Loath to reveal anything more than he might already have done, he grabbed a robe and headed to the living room. The answering machine showed messages. “Hell.” He hit the retrieve button and nearly tossed the unit across the room at the horrendous screeching noise that erupted from the device. The cold penetrated to his core leaving him clear headed and horrified. Kelsy was standing in the door to the bedroom watching him.

“Don’t move,” he ordered before walking over to the door and opening it. Outside, it was a balmy day, one of the really nice ones that didn’t happen very often in England. He stepped out onto the tiny front porch, or tried to do so. He touched whatever was across the doorway. While transparent, it felt solid and warm. The back door was clear, but the same transparent boundary surrounded the small back yard.  
Ed glared at Kelsy when he came back in. Her grin infuriated him, although the gleam in her eyes told him she was thinking as well and not about … Oh, good Lord! What the hell had he been thinking?   
Think, that seemed to be the one lacking item of the last … How long had she said? Three days? He frowned as he gazed out the front window. If he had been out of communication for 72 hours, where were his people? Why weren’t they anywhere in sight? Because the aliens had attacked. That was the obvious answer.

He sat down, swallowed hard and tried not to contemplate what the lack of attention to his being out of touch meant. Kelsy walked across the carpet to set a cup and saucer on the table in front of him. Coffee. The smell was tantalizing. He sipped it. Perfect temperature, perfect sweetness. “How?”

“… we’ve had coffee. I’m a quick study. Sweet and light, but a really good brew to start with so there’s no bitter. You want to hear my observations first?” Kelsy asked as she sat neatly on the far end of the coffee table, her long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. She tugged the towel into as much coverage as it would manage.

“Sure.” What could she offer, unless she admitted to being part of an alien plot?

“Someone wants us both out of the way, “ she began her analysis. “You, no idea why. Me, not too sure exactly on that one either as the last thing I knew I was on vacation and heading home to see my family.”

“Home? Where?” he asked. 

“Dad’s got a place in London. Mom’s,” she had to think for a moment. “Mom’s in Edinburgh …. No she’s not. “ Her hands started to dive for pockets that weren’t there. “Damn. Anyway, I was heading in from the southern Sahara for a break and…” She looked like she was worrying at something mentally.   
“I don’t even remember getting on the plane,” she ended with a concerned look.

Straker practically snorted at that admission. But then, his memories of where he was and what he was doing before waking up with Kelsy in his bed were not entirely clear either. “What do you do?” he asked, more to give himself time to organize his thoughts than from any interest.

“I’m an archaeologist. I dig dead bodies … mind you, there are some live ones …. Oh, squelch that thought! “ she ended sharply with a shake of her head. “Damn, but there are a lot of booby traps in my head right now.” She caught the drop in his gaze and chuckled. “If we figure this out and survive, there might be a booby prize,” she added sotto voce and caught the glimmer of a grin before he scrubbed his reaction to that thought. “Anyway, I come from a long line of archaeologically bent people, some of them very bent. You’d hate my grandfather.”

“Oh?” What an odd thing to say. 

“Rick O’Connell. Adventurer, archaeologist, spy, you name it, he and Evie probably did it, and each other … sorry. Can’t help it. Short line of sex maniacs. So, what do you do?” 

The question was expectable, but the intelligence reflected in her eyes brought him up short. “I own a movie studio.”

“You what?” Kelsey sounded totally disbelieving. “OK, that was impolite. But … you? Movie studio?” Her eyes traversed him top to toe and back with a shake of her head thrown in for negation. “No. Just, no. I mean, … no.” 

So, what do you think I should be doing?” he asked, his voice quiet and dangerous sounding.

She stared into his eyes for what seemed like eternity and then looked away. “Not movies, not entirely,” she muttered more to herself than him. “More action, more physical action,” she continued, getting to her feet and starting to pace. “But not … I don’t know. You strike me as maybe ex-military, but … I’m hungry,” she abruptly changed the subject as she turned and headed into the kitchen. “D’you know there’s a bio-hazard experiment in here?” she called from the refrigerator. She pulled out something green and scary looking. “Shall I dispose of it?”

He was curious as to what he’d left in there and stepped forward to investigate just as a long, thin, green and black tentacle shot out and wrapped around Kelsy’s wrist. Tentacle? Kelsy muttered a string of foreign sounding syllables and the tentacle yanked free, leaving a red trail around her wrist before stretching out toward him. He drew back, reaching for the gun he wasn’t carrying. Kelsy dumped the entire thing into the sink, turned on the water and used a utensil to shove the thing into the drain with the disposal unit in it. It screamed a thin, piercing scream as the grinder dealt with it. The silence afterward was unsettling. 

“What …”

“Your refrigerator,” she shot back. “Mom said if you left things for too long they’d try to crawl out,” she expanded as she washed her hands vigorously. The towel, none to secure to begin with, dropped to the floor.

Ed found his memories of their time in the kitchen surfacing, leading to a great desire to have Kelsy wrapped around him again. As she bent to retrieve the towel, he moved forward. Someone had taught her open palm techniques. She pulled the blow, but the open handed strike to his chest drove him backwards away from her. 

“I need clothes. You, stay here for a minute and live with my rummaging through your closet.” She made her way around him and back to the bedroom.

Ed’s immediate instinct was to follow her. Instead, he refreshed his coffee and took a look into his very empty refrigerator. The milk was fresh. The eggs were past date and the bacon was greenish, not a good look for bacon. Bottled water did not go bad, but it did not do much for caloric intake either. The cupboards were a little better stocked. He was working out the logistics of oatmeal when Kelsy returned. He was certain his clothes did not look half that good on him, even if she did strain the buttons on the shirt a trifle. Part of his mind immediately started figuring out ways of removing the clothing, or at least getting close enough to nibble on the nape of her neck which was now enticingly exposed by the neatly up swept tangle of curls she’d managed. 

“Oatmeal?” The word came out sounding much like she’d rather face a firing squad.

“It’s good for you. Tastes good, too,” he pointed out a little defensively. 

“I loathe oatmeal. You eat out a lot, don’t you.”

He nodded. “Part of the lifestyle,” he admitted.

“Go get dressed. I can actually cook oatmeal and do a very good job of it, even if I can’t stand it as a foodstuff. Go. Scoot.”

“Who put you in charge?” Ed asked as he started around the table toward her and the doorway.

“I did,” she told him as she moved around the other side of the table toward the cabinets, leaving his path clear. 

He was going to have to move that table.


	4. And just what do you do?

Ed walked back into his bedroom. By the time he was pulling out clothes for the day, his head was clear again. Kelsy was an amazingly attractive woman, but the urge to bed her had receded. Her decision not to get close to him was working for both of them. That or her urges were not nearly as strong as his own. A wave of shame washed over him as he reviewed the activities of the past three days. Not even in the throes of his love for Mary had he ever spent so much time ignoring his duties and … to be honest, he’d never ignored his duties when he was with Mary. Maybe if they’d spent three days … he shook his head hard to clear those thoughts.

Mary was in the past. Their love, their life together, doomed from the start because of his pig-headed devotion to what became SHADO. He really should have known better than to have tried to include a marriage in the mix. Mary wanted … Why was he even covering this ground again? The faint sounds of cooking reminded him that there was a large unknown in his kitchen making food for the two of them and they were trapped in his house. Not his home, his house … he wandered around that thought for a moment. Mary tried so hard to make a home for them, someplace to relax and release the stresses of the day; only he’d never seen it that way. Once it started, SHADO was home, not someplace away from the center of his thoughts.

Dammit. He marshaled his thoughts and finished dressing. That was better. The smell of oatmeal, butter and brown sugar with a touch of cinnamon tantalized as he moved back across the house to see what Kelsy had made. She was just finishing setting the food on the table. Oatmeal and toast for him, the sugar and cinnamon scent wafting up from the bowl and making his mouth water. She had toast also, the sugar and spice darkening the butter melted on the bread and offsetting the smell of peanut butter. He cocked an eyebrow up at that. 

“Risky,” he commented, nodding to the jar.

Kelsy laughed at that. “No spoon,” she pointed out and bit into her toast. 

They ate in silence, neither wanting to bring up the most pressing topic they needed to discuss: being trapped by an invisible barrier. 

He looked up to find Kelsy’s amber eyes watching him thoughtfully. “You’re not ex-military,” she commented.

The spoon with the last bite of oatmeal stopped halfway from bowl to mouth. “I’m not?”

“No, you’re not. You’re not retired at all,” she continued thoughtfully, dragging her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. “So, someone wants you out of the way because you’re a danger to them. Someone is up to something and thinks they’ll get away with it because you’re not where you should be.”

Kelsy had hit exactly the thought that was worrying him since there was no evidence that SHADO was working on getting him back. He thought about the last time the aliens had used time against them. He’d barely survived the number of shots of X-50 he’d used to combat the field trapping the rest of his personnel. What if they were trapped inside such a field? SHADO wouldn’t know that he was missing. No, wait. He wouldn’t know he was missing, but his people would … His brain felt tangled.

“So, there is something to what I’ve said.” Kelsy was regarding him with a sort of “ah-ha” look, although it was obvious she hadn’t made all the connections. “You’re black ops,” she finished with certainty. “And whatever you oppose is probably making very good use of their delaying tactics to do something they’re afraid you would find a way to stop.”

“It’s possible. Why black ops?” he asked blandly, unaware of the hard look in his eyes.

“Because if you were straight military there would be tons of well tailored uniforms in your closet instead of tons of well tailored civilian clothing that is almost as severe as the uniforms would be. By the way, Nehru?”

“I like the cut.”

She nodded. “Makes sense, find something that looks good and make it a personal style choice. I figured Armani, but …” 

“Why Armani?” He found the idea confusing.

“Elegant but relaxed tailoring, comfortable, movable, etc. The sort of thing James Bond should be wearing,” she burbled a bit.

“Bond?”

That got a full throated laugh. “Hmm … Let’s see: Straker, Ed Straker … Yep, delivers well in a Bondian film manner. If you get tired of the Nehru jackets, Armani is the way to go,” she decided, still chuckling. 

“You’re crazy,” he offered his opinion and finished his meal. “You seem to be taking the lead, now what?” Give her enough rope, he added mentally.

“I presume you know the “who” part of your equation,” she answered levelly, clearing the dishes, rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher. “Uhm, soap?” she asked, having opened the cabinet next to the washer and finding it empty.

“I don’t believe I’ve purchased any lately.” Their eyes met again. He smiled in response to hers. “Yes, I know who. I don’t understand why my people aren’t reacting.”

“Because they’re reacting to whatever else is being done,” Kelsy answered dryly. “At least, if I had gone to all this trouble to get someone out of the way, that’s what I’d be doing.”

“And you?”

“Not sure. This seems like an awfully indirect method for the people who might want me out of the way. Most of the time they shoot or stab and get it out in the open.” As out in the open as caves and dungeon sorts of places could be considered … Yeah.

“I had no idea archeology was so dangerous.” He watched as her color heightened a little, a charming coloration that managed not to clash with her hair. The blush was so attractive he yanked his libido back onto safer ground and wondered why his comment made her blush.

“Actually, there are places where it’s very dangerous and my family has a positive talent for finding them. However, most of them are more interested in disposing of us permanently rather than locating devastatingly sexy people to drop us on.” She caught his blink at her description and smiled at him.   
“You really aren’t aware of yourself, are you.”

“Not … no.” How stupid did that sound? Yet he wasn’t aware of himself as a sexual being most of the time, not since … Yank the brain back to where it needed to be. “I don’t think my enemies, as you’ve dubbed them, would consider this a sufficient distraction.” No, under normal circumstances, the background check would eliminate women like Kelsy without a second thought. She would either be a problem, and avoided; or recruitable and therefore off limits. Nothing like the last three days would ever occur, ever.

“But they’ve locked you into the situation and it did take three days for us to figure out something wasn’t quite kosher … not that sex is ever kosher, of course … or maybe it is ...” She chuckled at her choice of words. “So, you have enemies who want you out of the way. I have probably a dozen people who’d like to see me fall off the planet for one reason or another.” Did she notice his flicker of reaction to her choice of words? Apparently not as she continued to work through the situation. “I can’t think of a single one who would do this. Not deliberately. And I can’t think of anyone who’d snag my clothes to do so. That’s the one thing that keeps striking me as odd.”

“The one thing?” he echoed.

“Well, yeah. You’re in your own place. I’m displaced and without anything, including the clothes I… I don’t have my PDA, my phone or my laptop, all of which I would use to get more information.”

“You carry a mobile phone?” He had one in his car, but mobiles were heavy and not easily carried about.

“A cell phone, yeah.” Kelsy looked at him doubtfully as she realized that he wasn’t exactly tracking that one. “You don’t have a cell phone?”

“I have a mobile in my car.”

“Mobile … radio phone?” She paled and her eyes widened. “You’re talking top of the line tech for whatever you’re up to, and you have a mobile phone. Oh boy. That never occurred to me.”

“What never occurred to you?” Ed practically snapped. 

“That I might not be in the right time frame; that they might have moved me. It would explain the … well, no it doesn’t explain the lack of clothes … I don’t think … maybe?” Kelsy looked both unhappy and confused. “And it does make it look like somehow your problem and mine decided to kill two birds with one stone … not that we’re exactly dead yet, of course. And I’d really like to keep it that way, so we need to figure this out and fix it.”

“Fix what?” Ed practically purred. 

“Our situa … Ed, if I was really a part of the problem do you think I’d have thrown you in the tub and hosed you down with cold water?” she asked sweetly.

She had a point. Damn. “I’m out of ideas. I don’t see anything that could hide the technology to put up the barrier.”

“I haven’t touched the barrier. Let’s see what happens when I do. Outside.” 

Ed showed her where he met the barrier around the yard, walking her along the entire thing before stepping back and letting her tackle it. Kelsy turned her back on the invisible wall and seemed to center down, controlling her breathing and mouthing syllables too quiet for him to hear. After a few minutes, her head came up and she turned, reaching out and sliding a finger along the smooth surface. A glow of pale blue gathered around her fingertip and built up until it lit her entire hand, making the scene a little surreal.

“Che – a. Gath – ney – provilach’na-che,” she intoned deliberately and screamed as the blue around her hand enveloped her in what looked like ball lightning. Electricity sizzled and popped around her, snaking out from the field enclosing his house. 

Ed grabbed one of the purely ornamental lawn chairs and used it to push her away from the wall. Contact broken, the haze surrounding her faded leaving Kelsy shuddering and jerking as the effects wore off. He touched her, thinking that getting pop-fried if this was a trap was not the wisest thing he’d ever done. When nothing more than a static discharge popped against his finger, he pulled Kelsy into his arms and held her while the seizures died down. 

After a few minutes, she moved in his arms, circling him with her own and holding on as she broke into sobs. He wasn’t certain how long they sat on the grass and let her cry.

“Shit!” was the first coherent word that passed Kelsy’s lips.

“Succinct, but inelegant.”

That got a choked laugh out of her. She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out again before loosening her hold and shifting back so she could look at him. “So, how do I look?”

That was a hell of a question. Ed considered enumerating how tantalizingly delicious she looked from the tangle of her hair to the tips of her toes. Since just considering the list did distracting things to his anatomy, he settled for giving her a once over and nodding. “You’ll probably survive. What did you do?”

Her gaze slid away from his to focus in the vicinity of his chest giving him a good look at the top of her head. Ed didn’t want to see her hair, regardless of how his fingers wanted to get tangled in it. He caught her chin in his hand and eased her head up until he could see the clear amber eyes again. 

“This is going to sound crazy,” she admitted. “The words were a short form of a shielding spell, a calling of the protection of the Elder Gods. It didn’t work.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to.”

“Yeah. I would. It has before. This matrix is way more powerful than anything I’ve run into before. There’s got to be an artifact bound to it.” Yeah, he thought she was nuts, she could see it in his eyes. Unfortunately, her understanding of the world accommodated what she was talking about. His didn’t.


	5. Where is everyone?

Ed thought about what she was saying. Something about her interaction with the barrier was different from his. Curious, he set her on the grass and walked over to the invisible wall. He reached out and touched it. Again it felt slick and warm to his touch. Nothing else happened. He looked back at Kelsy who was watching him with interest, shifting around to get a good look at where he was in contact. 

“You’re touching it?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it feel like?”

“Smooth … actually slick,” he fought off urges as other images filled his senses. Did everything have to turn into innuendo? “Slightly warm.”

“That’s all? Not underlying current? Nothing vibrational? Nothing … Just warm and slick? Like a regular wall with really smooth oil base paint?”

“Precisely,” he answered her questions, running his hand along the seamless, featureless barrier. 

“Try sliding your hand up, see if you can find a top edge,” she suggested.

As far as he could reach standing on the ground, the wall extended upward. “No edge. Bring me the table.” The lawn table was lower than average, but it would give him eighteen or more inches in addition to his own height. He went to grab it himself just as Kelsy picked it up and headed back. 

“What? You think I’m a weakling?”

“It occurred to me, late, that you might be hurt. You did take a good jolt of electricity, you know.” He put his hands on the rim to take the table from her. What was it with them and tables? He took a deep breath and released it, to find Kelsy far too close for comfort when he opened his eyes again.

Kelsy licked her lips in a predatory manner, then gave him a cheeky grin. “I am very glad to know I’m not the only one,” she told him as she let go of the table. “And thanks for the consideration. I’m fine, but it was a bit shocking,” she added with a laugh. 

Standing on the table there was still no edge to be found. He frowned and ran his hand up and down the wall, then jumped off and felt to the bottom of the barrier. “It’s curved.”

“Crap. It’s a dome. “

“I can’t say your time, if it is different, has done much for the expressiveness of the language.”

That got a deeper laugh. “Yeah. We’re kinda direct and profane,” she agreed. “2005,” she answered his unasked question. “October 2005. Cell phones are conveniently pocket sized and getting smaller because the batteries are getting smaller and more powerful. A PDA is an electronic personal assistant. They’re about the size of your hand with touch screens that display data, word processing, spreadsheets, whatever you can program it to do. “

“Laptop?” he recalled the word from earlier.

“Portable computer. Can sit in your lap instead of on the desk, monitor, keyboard and hard drive all in one. “

“Virginia has some of those,” he responded without thinking. 

“Who’s Virginia?” Kelsy asked curiously.

“One of my co-workers.”

“One who might notice something wrong?” Kelsy looked hopeful.

“If she’s not coping with something else, yes.” 

They both wondered just what was going on outside their prison to keep Ed’s people from dealing with his disappearance.


	6. And a good time was not had by all.

Libidinous. Virginia Lake was beginning to hate that word. Not that she didn’t enjoy a good … She took a deep breath and corralled her unruly imagination. Maybe it was a good thing that for whatever reason Commander Straker had not made it in so far. She was worried about his welfare, but things were still unsettled inside SHADO HQ. She looked up from her notes as Paul Foster, himself a little harried looking, stepped into her office. He gave her a smile as he sank into the chair across from her.

“Yes?”

“We’ve settled down. Thank God.” Why did he keep getting that odd feeling every time someone said that? 

“Good. My understanding is that all … uhm … incidents were mutual.”

Paul snorted. “As in they were ripping each other’s clothing off and being relatively discreet about the whole thing, yes. None of our personnel have committed rape or coercion. That’s about all they haven’t done. And I don’t even want to consider where they haven’t … uhm … yes.” Paul blushed under   
Virginia’s gaze and found her paperweight very interesting suddenly. “Sorry.” Her chuckle surprised him. “What?”

“I’m somewhat surprised …”

“That I wasn’t. I know. I guess I’m … a little prudish?” He looked confused. “Maybe it was just so many people I’m used to looking at me like I’m a gigolo or something. “

“Maybe there’s no one here you’re interested in,” Virginia offered.

Given the number of incredibly attractive women on hand at the moment, he found that idea a little daunting. Wasn’t there a single pair of lips, eyes … His mind was suddenly filled with the scent and look of a specific woman. Oh, my. His color raised more. He met Virginia’s inquiring look and tried to focus on something else. Anything else. “Do we have any ideas yet?” Oh, God, that was the worst thing to say! “I mean …”

“I know what you mean,” Virginia assured him. It was obvious that whoever he was interested in was not on the premises. In some ways, that was a relief. In others, it made her incredibly curious as she was unaware of his having a current lover. “No. We do know that it is affecting only SHADO HQ. None of the buildings above us is accessible to us. No one has come in or gone out of the underground in the last seventy-three hours. We are out of contact with the studio, but we are in contact with Moonbase.”

“How are they holding up?” Paul asked.

“They seem unaffected by the current situation.”

“Probably a good thing Freeman’s on the moon then. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that exactly the way it came out. I just meant that it was probably better not to be subjected to whatever the aliens have done down here. Easier to keep a level head. What?” He frowned at Virginia who was looking at him in surprise again. “Just because I can be an idiot, doesn’t mean I’m that way all the time,” he pointed out with a pout.

Virginia surprised him with another laugh. “No, it doesn’t. And you’re not an idiot that much of the time. You just come across as very young sometimes.”

“Yeah. I know. So, we’re locked in. They’re locked out. We have plenty of supplies for the time being so we won’t starve and I think the worst of the “gotta do it now” is over. Jackson is getting some help to put his office back together now that the orgy is over.”

“Orgy?”

Paul thought about it for a moment. “All right, I’ll take back the orgy, but only because I don’t think you can have one in succession. Very popular man our Dr. Jackson.” Paul repressed a shudder at the number of people he’d caught coming out of Jackson’s office. “We should have an accurate head count of all personnel present before shift change. Which we won’t have because no one can get in.” He met her gaze again. “Do you feel as tired as I do?”

“Probably. Well, let’s go see if we can get operational again and find out what the aliens have done while we were down.”

Keith Ford was talking to Alec Freeman when Lake and Foster walked into the Command center. He had already relayed orders for all personnel in the complex to be present at 1800 hours for a head count. Alec was fuming because he was still on the Moon.

“Keith,” Virginia addressed him. 

“Yes, Col.?”

“Tell Col. Freeman I need him right where he is, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. If the aliens haven’t done anything so far, it’s because they’re building up for something big. No, we haven’t heard from Commander Straker. All land and mobile communications are out down here. The only lines open are the ones … to … Moonbase.” Virginia looked struck by this as she had not been before. “Why would they leave communication with Moonbase open?” She traded looks with Paul, then requested that Keith open the line he was using.

“Alec. Has there been any unusual activity over the last three to four days?”

“Define unusual,” Alec answered her sounding more than usually bland.

“All right, I’m not looking for bouncing spinners,” she shot back acerbically. “Have we had any alien activity at all?”

“Nothing. There were a couple of small satellites added to the junk in orbit around earth yesterday.”

“I’m not aware of any launches scheduled. Send us the coordinates. I’ll have Ford check our records.” She frowned thoughtfully as she commented on the launches more to herself than anyone else. “We always have them notify us several weeks ahead of launch.”

Ford cleared his throat. “We haven’t had notice of any satellite launch in over six weeks, Col.”

“Damn. “ Virginia’s mind raced. There was no question to her that the satellites and their current situation were linked. “Alec. I want those satellites down as soon as possible. They’re not connected to our isolation here, but they went up unscheduled and that is probably not good. I’d rather explain later, if we can, than make an error now. Take them out. Straker’s not here. I’m giving command authorization.” She ran off a string of numbers and letters that would be changed as soon as things were back to normal. “Under my authorization.”

“Understood. We’re keeping SID under watch as well.”

“Good thinking, Alec. Get those satellites down. I’ll let you know when we have more answers.”

Paul grabbed the coordinates from Ford as he finished printing them out. On their own, they meant nothing to him. But there was a map of the solar system in Straker’s office they could check it against. He and Virginia took a look at how the two would triangulate and with what. The first most obvious item was the Moon itself. For a few minutes each day, the two satellites made an isosceles triangle with the Moon as its apex. What that did for whoever launched them, neither Paul nor Virginia had a clue.


	7. Moonbase to the rescue … maybe.

Alec gave Gay Ellis the orders and then fumed in his isolation from HQ and Straker. After fifteen minutes of his pacing and muttering, Gay put her foot down, pointing out that they were in this together. “Colonel … Alec .. We're just as confined here as you are. We're worried about the Commander and about those trapped in HQ. But this isn't going to help. We're working as fast as we can to get the Interceptors refitted and take out those satellites.”

Alec had the good grace to look abashed. “Sorry. It's just unlike Ed to be out of touch, to not be there when the rest of the base is in trouble.”

“I know. They must have figured out some way to keep him away.” The most likely method was to have killed him, they both knew that. “We've tried his car phone frequencies. It rings, so the car is intact. But there's no answer.” Her own worry showed in her wide brown eyes.

“The satellites?”

“They're transmitting on an odd frequency. I was just coming over to get you.”

Gay led him over to the console where Joan Harrington was working on the transmissions. Joan looked up and nodded as they joined her, before going back to what she was doing.

“Anything more?” Gay asked.

Joan shook her head. “Not yet. I'm running it through the filters now. One's running ultra high frequency, the other at a very, very low frequency.” She played the sounds back for Alec to hear. They were nothing like the signals they'd caught off the alien ships over the years. Alec shook his head as well.

“Play them together,” he suggested.

Joan nodded and patched together the sounds, feeding them through her headphones first. Gay, talking quietly with Lt. Barry didn't realize anything was amiss until the other woman launched herself at Alec, clawing and biting at his face and hands as Alec fended her off. Her voice was hoarse as she attacked again.

“Cthulhu .. ftagn! Ia! Ia! Tza-neh! Cthulhu ftagn! Ia! Ia! Tza-neh! ...”

She repeated the alien sounds over and over, turning on Gay and Nina when she could not get to Alec. The headphones came away from her ears and fell to the floor. The sound coming through them was distant yet menacing and was not the words that spewed from Joan's mouth. Alec grabbed the woman from behind as her attack faltered. Gay dove past them and shut off the feed. As she turned to help Alec and Nina, Joan gave one final yell and passed out.

“Are you all right?” Gay checked with Alec before checking Joan. He nodded. A few scratches were nothing compared to what he'd suffered at other times. His concern was for Joan.

“Is she …?”  
“Pulse slow but steady, breathing seems all right, sir.” Gay lifted an eyelid. “Eye dilated as with sleep. We should confine her to the infirmary until we know more.”

“Right. I'll take her down. Who's on duty?”

“Jan Carson. I'll warn him you're bringing her down.” She opened communication to the infirmary as Alec lifted Joan into his arms. Gay looked back at him as he moved toward the entrance to the command center. “It's a good thing she didn't' feed it through the speakers first thing. I'd hate to think what we'd have been like if she had.”

Alec met her gaze and nodded. It was a sobering thought. Just as HQ had been affected with lust, Moonbase could have become a bloodbath.

Alec returned to control to find preparations to get the Interceptors to the satellites almost complete. “We've had to add secondary fuel tanks to get them back. We don't usually cover that many miles during an attack.”

“And landing on Earth is not an option,” Alec agreed. The Interceptors were perfect for space battles but would do a perfect imitation of a stone in atmosphere.

“Another fifteen minutes and we'll be ready to go, sir. I've put the sounds on separate tracks to record. I'll warn Keith when we send the recordings back.”

“Good work, Gay. Anything besides sounds coming from those things?”

“No, but there is some interference on the plane from them to us, sir. They're also set to stay paced. They're keeping us at the apex of the triangle … Well, the moon, not the base.” She looked as troubled as he felt.

“Get me Col. Lake. Let her know we're prepared to launch.”

“Yes, sir.”

Virginia took the call in Command. “Good work,” she responded when they told her about the Interceptor refit being nearly complete.

“Launch in five minutes, Col. Lake. Col. Freeman would like a word with you.”

“Put him through. Yes, Alec?”

“We're sending recordings of the sound from the satellites. Joan was working on them. We're lucky she didn't have them on open channel.”

“Oh? What happened?” Virginia looked worried. What could have happened on top of what they'd already experienced?

“Some sort of subliminal message, Col.” Gay answered her. “Joan attacked Col. Freeman, then myself and Lt. Barry.”

“She passed out when Lt. Ellis cut the signal. She was yelling some incomprehensible gibberish when she attacked,” Alec continued.

“What did it sound like?”

“Transmitting now.”

Joan's voice, a little distorted, came over the open microphone. In the silence just after was the sound of a cup hitting the floor and breaking followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. Keith Ford looked stricken, his coffee cup in shards at his feet, his face even paler than usual, his eyes big, dark and round. He looked terrified as no one could recall having seen him.

Dr. Doug Jackson was passed out cold at the bottom of the stairway leading up to the mezzanine where Straker's office was located; where Col. Lake and Col. Foster were standing. There was blood welling from a cut on the side of his head where he'd hit the banister during his collapse. Foster looked from one to the other and wondered why he was not surprised that out of all of them, those two had reacted.

“It looks like we may have some leads here,” Virginia told Alec. “Keep us posted on Lt. Harrington. We're working on things here. Let us know when the satellites are gone.”

“Will do. You're not expecting things to change down there when we take them out?”

“No. This was in place when they launched. The two things may be related, but they're not the same.”

“Understood. Freeman out.”

Virginia turned to Foster. “See to Dr. Jackson. I'll talk to Keith.”

Paul nodded and motioned for a couple of men to help him check out the Dr. while Virginia stepped around the body. “Keith,” she addressed the distressed looking communications officer as she walked over to him.

“Yes?” he almost squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes?”

“Keith, what do you know?”

“Know?” he repeated. “Uhm … I … I … “ he stumbled trying for an answer. He looked down and seemed puzzled by the splash and shatter at his feet. “Oh. Sorry.” Instinct sent him into clean up mode.

Paul, having seen to the disposition of Dr. Jackson, was observing Ford's reactions. While he had his reservations about the quiet communications tech, this was not normal behavior. Ford's pallor was practically dead man white and he was acting with a confusion that was not normal. Hell, Straker yelled at the man and Ford seldom achieved more than a despondent look.

Curiously, Ford was another one who hadn't indulged. “Ford!” Paul snapped. Virginia glared at him, but the force of Paul's command voice seemed to pull the man back to a sense of where he was as he dropped the broken pieces into a waste can.

Keith looked at Virginia finally. “Yes?”

“You recognized the … sounds?” You could hardly call them words.

He hesitated before agreeing. “Yes. I've ….” He took a breath to steady himself. “I've heard something like it before.”

Virginia scowled at him for stopping there. Ford was usually eager to please; happy to strut his knowledge in a subdued way. This was unlike him, unless something was more than usually wrong. Right, as though the entire situation was not more than usually wrong. She took a breath, released it and tried again in a more reasonable tone. “You recognize it and it frightens you. Keith, that's not like you.”

Keith looked away and then met her gaze again. The words were guaranteed to give him nightmares. “Before, when I hosted the show, most of it was … dubious. There were a few real UFO sightings. There were some other things that didn't make the show. One night I got a call from a young woman who was terrified to the point of being numbly calm. We set up a meeting. She was dead when I arrived. Gruesomely dead. There was a tape set on loop. Those words were playing over and over … The police called it a ritual killing. I'd never seen anything like it.”

“You're sure about the words?” Virginia pressed him.

He nodded. “Yes. Quite certain.”

“Then you're on research to figure out what we're dealing with. The aliens must have allied with someone here. We need a way to break out. Find it.”

Ford nodded. “On it, sir.”

Well, Ford was back to normal, Paul thought. At least, what passed for normal for him.


	8. Ancient issues

Doug Jackson lay comatose in the infirmary. Trapped inside his mind by the sound of the chant he'd blocked out so many years ago, he screamed in silence. He was in his home village, far from the light of scientific endeavor, where the old ways were still a reality. His family was Christian, Byzantine Catholic and faithful; but there were others who adhered to something far older and sinister. The elders called for sacrifice.

He was thirteen, just at the edge of manhood for his culture. His mother wept, hidden behind his father who brandished a wicked looking hay rake at the men confronting him. He denied them what they wanted, bellowing at them that they would not take his child; that the ancient and evil deities they worshiped would burn as would all evil before he would let them take what they wanted from him. The child Jackson was then did not understand what the men wanted, only that he was afraid, very afraid. 

Two days later, as he tended their small flock of goats, two of the men came for him. He fought, but he was young and inexperienced. They overpowered him and carried him to a cavern in the mountains. There he was caged, like an animal and left for several days. He was nearly delirious with hunger and thirst when they came for him, pulling him out of the small opening, ripping his clothing from him and forcing him to wash in a freezing small lake. He tried to drink the water, but it was too alkaline and made him vomit up the water almost before he was through drinking.

His captors roared with laughter and made crude jokes about him. A woman came then, old and bent. Her face was seamed with lines, her teeth nearly gone and what few were left smelled of death and decay. She touched him. He tried to keep her away, but discovered that his hands could only cover so much. She pulled a dirty shift out of her skirt pocket and shoved it into his hands, telling him to put it on. 

He hesitated until her look made him blush and comply. What was this place? What had he done to be so treated? Where was his father now? She led him past the villagers who were not Catholic and then past people he doubted were people. Demons? There were demons here? He crossed himself and prayed as he had not since he was very, very young. Please, oh great and mighty God, save him. Behind it all was the buzz of a chant. The last six feet of the crowd that now mouthed strange and hideous syllables was made up of things that would forever be burned into his memories; tentacled and horrible misshapen things that drooled slime and smelled of primordial stews stinking of life and death at once. 

Then he saw it. The altar, the sacrificial stone, dark stains down the sides across a bas relief of a creature that was never of this world. He screamed and fought to get away. There was no place for his God and His Son here, only the terrors of the dark ruled here. Battered half-unconscious, his left arm broken and dangling, he was dragged to the altar and placed upon it, his thin wrists circled by manacles that pulled and stretched him taut. Above him a statue loomed, its head hidden in the darkness of the upper reaches of the cavern, a mirrored surface a warped oval on its belly and chest. 

The silver surface swirled. Something pale and flaccid poked out of the surface, questing blindly for what it sought. Another followed the first, and another until four of them nosed about the floor between the gate and the altar. He screamed in terror and struggled against the metal holding him in place. The skin of his wrists abraded, blood oozing from his torn skin. The chant increased until his screams could not be heard above the primal roar of the worshippers.  
“Na – Thet!” 

Silence dropped like a curtain. The pressure of the sound vanished. One of the tentacles from the gate found his ankle even as his right hand slipped free of the restraints. He tried to kick the thing away, but it clung to him, cold, wet, like the drool of Barya's mastiff before it dried. 

A light, blinding in intensity, turned the crowd away. As he tried desperately to free his other hand, the light moved toward him and a soft voice spoke to him in a language he did not understand, but that he knew was meant to help him. In spite of the agony of moving broken bones, his hand slid free and he could sit up. That he immediately shrank from what he saw squirming up his leg was irrelevant. He was half free now. The slime on his leg frightened him, so he pulled off the dirty shift to protect his hands and tried to shove the thing off of him. It quivered at his touch, lunged for his face and fell short as the light flashed out between him and it, blinding him but apparently turning the thing back. He would remember the teeth in the end of it until he died.

“Wake up. Please, wake up. You are safe, my son. You are safe.” His mother's voice called to him. He was warm, the harsh, thick wool blanket of his bed wrapped around him. He moved and his arm hurt. He whimpered against his mother's shoulder, feeling very young and knowing his father would be angry with him. It was only later that he knew his father had been slaughtered in the night, ripped to pieces, his head and internal organs never found. 

Doug Jackson sat up screaming in SHADO's medical section. 

“Col. Lake.” 

“Yes, Lt.”

“Dr. Jackson's awake. They've given him something to calm him and he is willing to talk, but they say he's not making a lot of sense.”

Virginia looked at Paul who looked like he didn't think much of Jackson anyway. No one really liked the man, but he was a necessary component of the organization. “I'll be down soon.” They sat in silence in Straker's office for a few minutes. “Not something I ever expected,” she broke that silence. 

Paul snorted. “A man like that always has secrets,” he commented. Although what could make a man like that pass out … Paul was more worried than he was willing to let on.


	9. Rescue

Dr. Jackson had not considered what it would be like to be a patient in his own infirmary. The hushed voices, the quiet attending to his needs. He rubbed at the long healed break in his arm, noting the scars from the manacles were long since vanished. There was a knock at the door and a bright eyed young woman peeked in. She smiled when she saw him.

“Hi. Care for some company?” she asked.

“Lt. What are you doing here?”he answered her with his own question. Lt. Belle Carrely was a new addition to SHADO's communication and technical division. She loved computers. She also had no worries about Dr. Doug Jackson, or so it seemed. 

“Bringing you a couple of things. Chocolate. I find it helps when I’m dealing with traumatic experiences.” Her wide blue eyes belied her ever having had a traumatic experience. “OK, I find it helps regardless. And Keith suggested I bring you this. He didn’t say why. He just handed it to me and said give it to him.”

He unfolded the page and looked at the drawing on it. Elder Sign. The words worked their way slowly up to a conscious threshold. He nodded. Refolded the sheet and tucked it under his pillow. “I should be out of here soon.”

Dr. Shroeder entered on cue to talk to his superior and now patient. Belle left with a smile. She was one of the people who visited his office while the barrier was having such an intriguing effect on personnel. Dr. Jackson and Dr. Shroeder, long time co-workers, talked. Jackson described his traumatic dream without ever connecting it completely to the reality he had long ago buried. Shroeder, while respecting boundaries, made his own connections.

“I want you to stay overnight while they work on the sounds they've recorded. Given your reaction to the phrases Lt. Harrington used, I would not wish to chance your hearing the sounds from the satellites.”

With a sigh, Jackson agreed. There was nothing he could do to combat his reactions to the unexpected sounds. It was best that he stay away from the work Ford and his people were doing now. “Bring me some of my files?” he asked.

Shroeder nodded. Given what he now knew and surmised, keeping Jackson's mind busy was the best thing for the psychiatrist and nominal head of security. He sent the one orderly on duty to collect any files on Jackson's desk and take them to him. It did not occur to him that there might be danger in doing so.

Jane Belmont collected the files as requested, leafing through each one as she gathered them into a pile. This was so easy. All she had to do was finish what had been started and she would be whatever she wanted to be. She had been promised for her faithfulness that she would stand among them as they greeted the Old Ones. She would take her place among the few, the mighty. As the world fell to the rule of the ancients, she would be with them, destroying human civilization to bring forth a new blossoming of the rightful rulers of this foolish world.   
She walked to the room where the sacrifice lay waiting, a disturbing smile on her face. She tapped at the door before letting herself in. “Dr. Jackson, I've brought your files.” She placed them on the small table that was there to set the food tray on for the patient. “Here, let me help with those pillows so you can sit more comfortably.” She felt the sheet of paper he'd tucked under the pillow. “What's this?” she asked with another smile.

Her eyes widened in horror as she saw the drawing on the paper. Light played around the figure as she tossed it away from her. “You!” she screamed and did something indescribable with her right arm and hand, turning them into a squirming boneless thing that was hideously reminiscent of the otherworldly tentacle from his nightmare. 

Jackson threw himself off the bed and toward the drawing, scrabbling for it as Belmont rounded the foot of the bed, shoving at the heavy unit and coming for him. He turned, placing his back against the wall and held the fragile sheet of paper between them. She screamed again and lunged for him, her left hand ripping the drawing from his hands. Golden fire erupted around her hand and arm, eating its way toward her body as she screeched inhuman syllables and tried to impale Jackson with the tentacle, a   
mouth with horrible hollow teeth opening at the tip, a tongue reaching for him. 

“Na – Thet!” 

Lt. Carrely entered the room directly behind Belmont, the words of denial on her lips and a shimmering crystal blade in her hands that she drove directly into and through Belmont's heart. She followed the action with a heartfelt “Euw!” as the body turned to slime and fell to the floor. Guards dashed into the room to see Carrely with weapon standing over Jackson. They arrived at the obvious conclusion, ignoring the goo and promptly arrested the Lt. Her laugh did nothing to assure them they'd made a mistake. 

She surrendered her weapon, carefully, with an admonishment to the guard taking it not to cut himself on it; and submitted to being cuffed and taken away. She had every confidence that Jackson would straighten things out. And after he did, she'd collect her reward for being an attentive member of the SHADO crew. 

Paul Foster looked a little confused as he read over Jackson's report an hour later. He looked at Virginia and back at the report. “Belle saved his life. The actual assault was from Belmont. And Belmont is now goo on the floor of the room.”

“They've moved Jackson to transit quarters and posted a guard, assuming that will do any good,”   
Virginia confirmed. “We've got to find out what that sound is about. I do not like the look of this at all. Who knows who else has been suborned? We're going to end up like the people in Who Goes There if we don't get this solved.”

Paul nodded, signed the order to release Belle back to her work and tried to figure out a way out of the barrier. The barrier was the key; assuming that the satellites were not the key. His head hurt, he wanted a drink and … and he wanted to see Fitz, dammit. That thought gave him pause. MayBelle FitzHugh was who he wanted to see? He felt his loins tighten at the thought of her the last time he'd seen her; generous curves clad in a light silk dressing gown as she cooked breakfast, talking over her shoulder to him, tossing the sleep mussed curls out of her face. Good lord. Was that why he... didn't? Fitz was older than he was, a power in the movie industry and he enjoyed talking to her; not wooing her, not swaying her, not romancing her, just …   
Virginia noticed Paul's look. She hoped the epiphany he was apparently having would help them.   
“Paul?”

He shook his head and looked at her. “Sorry, you said something?”

“I was wondering what you were thinking.” He blushed. Virginia blinked at that. Paul blushed. “Unless you'd rather ...”

“Later. If we survive, I'll tell you. I think it's important, but not right now. Has anyone actually walked the barrier?”

“No.”

“Let's. We might manage some fresh air and an idea or two.”

Virginia followed him out of the office. She was going to damned well make sure they survived because she really wanted to know what Paul had been thinking.


	10. The trouble with skulls

Ed and Kelsy sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table drinking hot cocoa and trying very hard to ignore their very pleasant memories of that table. Kelsy dipped her spoon into the cocoa to mix it, pulled it out and stopped before she licked the bowl, a wicked grin curving her lips. She chuckled at Ed’s look.

“What?” She asked, trying for innocent and failing on an epic scale as her eyes traveled up and down his crisply clad form. She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why?” she asked, sounding like a little kid in her intonation. 

“You really want to … get things started again?” He asked easily, drinking the warming beverage and wondering if it was perhaps not the wisest thing he ever did. Warm. Yes …

Kelsy continued to smile like a cat with a very firm grip on a canary. “If you’re expecting a ‘no’ answer to that question, you’re doomed to disappointment Mr. Ed Straker. If we were not in some sort of possibly dire straits and had a ‘fridge full of food and drink, I would like nothing more than to continue exploring every nook and cranny you have, oh wondrous font of delight,” she assured him.

Something in her eyes told him she spoke the truth. Age and differences meant nothing to her, absolutely nothing. He sipped the cocoa and explored how he felt about that. Like the liquid chocolate in his cup, it made him feel warm inside. 

“You know,” she broke into his thoughts. “There’s got to be something we’ve missed. Something that pulls this together and makes sense. Like, why the backyard but not the front?”

“The car might break through the barrier,” Ed gave her his first thought.

“Maybe … Maybe it’s something else … I’m out of maybe’s. We could go back to plan A.”

“Refresh my memory on Plan A?”

“You, me, hot sex … No?” she delivered a theatrical sigh that again pointed out just how well endowed she was and caused his pants to feel a little tight. “OK, Plan K, we find out what’s broadcasting the barrier.”

“If there’s technology, there has to be a source,” Ed added thoughtfully, declining to ask what happened to plans B through J. “If there’s a transmitter in the front, it’s on the other side of the barrier.”

“But if there’s a set up in the back, it might just be … along the line of the barrier and we might be able to … circumvent the idea.” Her eyes lit at the thought. 

They scrambled into the back yard where Kelsy stayed back from the inviso-wall, as she was thinking of it, and let Ed work his way along the ground edge, using his sensitive fingers to find any disturbance in the ground. A quarter of an hour later, he located an irregularity: a small mound under the grass that extended to the wall. He pulled his pocket knife out and started carefully digging around the mound.

“Hmm, nice work. I should take you on my next dig,” Kelsy observed from behind him. 

“Let’s see what we find first. What the?” Ed had been expecting some sort of metallic, technological gizmo hiding under the soil of his yard, not the gentle curve of a crystal rock. Impatient, he cut the thing out of the dirt and yanked it free. A skull. He’d found a skull carved of what looked like rose quartz. He felt something change in the wall beside it, a faint vibration. He stood, with the carving in hand and stepped away, colliding with Kelsy.

“Shoot … warn me before you …” The words stopped as her eyes widened, she gulped air like a runner at the end of a race and held on to keep her balance on knees suddenly turned to Jello.

That was a mistake. A few minutes later they surfaced for air, clothes in considerable but not complete disarray; the skull grinning at them from the grass where it had fallen. Neither wanted to back away from the other, yet they knew it had to happen. 

“Always wanted die with a smile on my face,” she muttered into his lapels. “Push me away. We’ll never get out of here if we don’t …”

With a groan, Ed took her arms in his hands and separated them. “What is that thing?” he grated out, trying to convince his fingers to let go of Kelsy.

“A skull,” she gave him the obvious answer as she oh so gently pried his fingers loose. Her look of anguish told him she was as tormented as he was by separating. “The crystal skulls are things of legend, of myth. The first one was said to have been found by a teen-aged girl in South America on an excavation with her father,” Kelsy found strength in the recitation of what she knew. She stepped back, leaving Ed to regain his equilibrium as she talked. “Most people consider the skull a hoax, too refined to have been made by an earlier civilization. None of which explains why the skull has odd effects on the people around it.”

“And this?” Ed gestured to the life size quartz skull he was now afraid to touch.

“Xhia Khum.” She stretched the final vowel out to a “UU” sound. “Also legendary. Seven skulls carved from various semi-precious stones. In combination, under the right circumstances, they can be invoked to do miraculous or horrendous things. They can give power over others to a master sorcerer …” She met his gaze. “Legend,” she snapped to counter his disbelief. “Power poured into t hem can bend the world to the will of man or woman controlling them.”

“Are you controlling them?” His voice was harsh again, fear and anger warring inside him. 

“Would I have poured cold water on you if I wanted this to continue?” she asked him a second time.

“Maybe you trapped yourself,” he answered her.

“Maybe you have trust issues,” she retorted with a chuckle. She stepped over and picked up the skull, braced for her reaction to it. She muttered several protections under her breath. The skull stared at her, ancient and innocuous in its existence. “OK, one person holding it doesn’t trigger the effect. It takes two …It takes two – oo – oo – oo-oo,” she warbled suddenly. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist,” she laughed, then sobered at his frown. “Where were you in the ‘60s?”

“Vietnam, among other places.”

“Oh. Ow. Bad time in the empire,” she said with a nod. “Anyway, the wall is still there, yes?”

“It’s vibrating.”

“I watch too much TV,” she said with a giggle, apropos of noting he understood. “I’ll explain it some time.” She looked at the yard. “We’re about a third of the way from the side of the house. Keep going.” She set the skull on the lawn table and followed Ed as he continued to check the ground. This time she kept her distance a little better, so when he found the second skull, this one carved from a hunk of   
Lapis Lazuli and looking like nothing human, she wasn’t in the way to find out what kind of behavior it engendered.

Ed backed away from the wall in haste this time as the vibration picked up. He could hear it hum and sputter. “We’re getting somewhere.” He set the blue stone on the table, well away from the first one.   
Taking a look at the space between the first two, he picked a spot for the third one and located it almost immediately. This one was obsidian, shiny and black, smoothed to a fine finish, a child’s skull in size.   
As he pulled it out of the dirt, the barrier began to pulse, flashes of electricity showing here and there.

“Uhm, does that mean it’s getting unstable?” Kelsy sounded worried. 

“Probably,” Ed agreed, a grim smile curving his lips and distracting his companion for a moment.

“Don’t smile like that,” she admonished him.

He gave her a lazy look from under his eye lids. “Why not?” he inquired, moving toward her, forgetting what he was holding. He wanted to feel her under him, pleading, afraid …

Kelsy, seeing the disturbing look on his face, slapped the skull out of his hands and ducked as he lunged for her. Oh shit. This was not going to be fun. Luckily, she was well trained in three kinds of martial arts, of which one was doing her no good at all. God, he looked feral. Sexy. Dangerous. Stick! Her brain yelled as her hands scrabbled across the house wall and located mop handle. Ducking him again, she slammed the wood across her knee, breaking it and gaining a usable weapon. 

“You really think you’re good enough,” he sneered. 

“Three times single stick champion of lower Dhampur. Damn right I’m good.” With which statement she caught him a good one across his right ear, knocking his head hard to the left. 

He stood for a moment, lights dazzling his eyes and wondering why Kelsy hit him. He looked at her in confusion and fury until he realized she wasn’t continuing her attack. The last few minutes replayed in his mind and he felt ashamed of his actions. “Kelsy …” 

She dropped the stick and had her arms around him before any part of her brain had a chance to point out this could be a trick. Luckily, it wasn’t. He apologized in a low town, disgusted with himself and softly assured by Kelsy that it wasn’t him. Or, at least not willingly him.   
“What?” He was beginning to feel out of his depth, again.

“The skulls enhance, they shove the rest of who you are aside and pull one portion to the fore. There is a part of every person who will misuse power, but is kept in check by the rest of the personality in each of us. This skull offered you power, a taste of what it’s like to have people fear you, to know that you are stronger and better than the rest and they should know it. But that’s not who you are. All I had to do is get your attention … oh, sorry. Looks like I hit you pretty hard there. You’re ear’s bleeding.” 

He lifted fingers to explore the damage. Split cartilage from the feel of it, and the deep down ache that was starting. Given the images that still played through his head, it was the least he deserved. He tried to shake off the influence of the skull and to ignore his renewal of interest as Kelsy stripped off her shirt to tie around the small skull. She looked down and blushed. “Oops. Forgot. No bra!” she squeaked and ran back into the house while Ed sat on the grass and laughed. 

He sighed as the laughter gave out. Ed Straker, confirmed bachelor, was beginning to regret his dedication to remaining unattached. Kelsy took so much in stride that would have destroyed Mary. Mary again. Damn. Why hadn’t he met Kelsy instead?


	11. Back at the studio

Ms. Ealand, Straker’s phenomenal secretary, had spent three days fielding questions about Straker’s whereabouts. She had also improvised answers for where Foster was. Freeman was easier; he was officially doing location scouting. She was also thankful that the majority of SHADO’s personnel were single and not intimately involved. That way there were very few calls she had to answer about the rest of the personnel apparently trapped in the installation below the studio.

Her first intimation of a problem was when security shift should have changed and could not gain entrance to the facility. Edgar Dobbson tapped at her door looking sheepish and inquiring if there was anything going on he should know about. She was then unaware that Straker was not on the premises. 

“Anything going on?” she echoed his question. “Why?”

Dobbson stepped into her office and closed the door behind him. “None of the elevators are working and we can’t get into the underground at all,” he told her quietly. “There’s some kind of barrier across the back entrance. I can feel it, solid and slick feeling, but I can’t find a way around or through it. Are they working on something?”

“I’m not aware of any testing, Mr. Dobbson. I’ll call down.” She shrank away from the ear piece of her phone as it screeched at her. “I don’t know. There’s something wrong.” She tried Straker’s home on a hunch and was a little more ready for the phone to turn into a shrieking creature. “Have some of your people go check on the Commander,” she told him quietly. “Call in anyone who hasn’t just come off duty and start working on getting into Headquarters. Something is definitely wrong. I’ll contact all off duty personnel I can and put them on alert.”

Between them, they had ascertained that there was a problem at Straker’s and at HQ. No one assigned to check on the Commander had seen anything, although there was some indication that he was not alone. Two shadows on the curtains at night were reported by those keeping watch. The invisible barrier was also reported. No one had located a source for the barrier and as it ran along the entire front of the house, they couldn’t get close enough to bang on the wall or window. Banging on the barrier produced no results. It was obvious from the lack of response from the inside that Straker wasn’t hearing anything. 

They retreated and observed until Dobbson called everyone in for a briefing. 

Thus no one was in place when Straker and Kelsy started unearthing skulls. Neither could anyone contact Moonbase from the outside. It was only when Paul and Virginia started investigation the barrier from the inside that both sides became aware of the working of the other. The barrier blocked sound, but not sight. Dobbson’s assistant, Lisa Kelly, spotted Paul and Virginia before anyone else. Her yells attracted her companions and they wasted several minutes figuring out that they could not hear each other. 

Kelly had the bright idea of grabbing a sign that was being repainted and using her ever present marker to ask questions. 

//Are you all right?//

Virginia nodded vigorously. “Paul, find a board, something. We’re going to need to write back.”

Several minutes later, communication was established, if in a rather eccentric manner. Virginia gave them the short version of the briefing: barrier, apparently some sort of dome configuration (Jordan Allardyce had figured that one out by watching a mouse trapped between the barrier and a corner of a room) and that there were some suspicious satellites that Moonbase would be taking out soon. They also pointed out that the satellites probably had nothing to do with the barrier. 

Dobbson, through Kelly, relayed that they were in touch with the Skydivers, but not with Moonbase. All three of the Sky units were helping keep an eye on things overhead, while the Divers were all headed for the shores of Great Britain.

Virginia groaned. “That may be just what they want … “

Had anything been spotted? Any news that sounded like the aliens?

No. Nothing.

Paul sat down on the concrete. “They’re waiting for whatever those satellites were put in to do,” he offered as his analysis. “The attack will come after that.” He was a little surprised when Virginia smacked her fist into the barrier. 

“Ow! That’s solid!”

“I did mention that it was,” he pointed out, trying to hide his smile as she shook her hand. “Well, we know where the perimeter of the thing is. We need to check it. Get Dobbson to check the top and see if there’s anything near the apex that might be generating the energy for this barrier.”

“Good thinking. Anything alien, odd, out of place …” She muttered as she neatly printed their orders on the sheet of plywood Paul had dragged over.

Dobbson agreed and sent his people to check all the areas they could get to. He also let Miss Ealand know that he’d made contact.

“Thank God,” she said when she got word. Straker seemed to be alive, if contained, and the personnel below her were, for the most part, fine. 

The walk of the barrier, with Virginia and Paul on one side and Dobbson’s crew on the other, located nothing. It was Kelly who noticed a change in the barring across the entrance to the underground. 

“Dobbson! Something’s happening!”

“What?” Dobbson snapped as he came running up. 

Kelly had her hand pressed against the barrier. “It’s vibrating. It wasn’t doing that a few minutes ago. “

Dobbson didn’t know whether to tell her to get her hand off the thing and get away from it, or to continue to physically monitor what they couldn’t see. He looked to where Virginia was regarding him curiously. Quickly he wrote the information on the board. She hurried over with a call to Paul to join her. Hesitantly, she touched the barrier on the inside. It was vibrating.


	12. Reconsidering the situation

Kelsy returned with a fresh shirt and a med kit she'd found in the bathroom. “You are prepared for everything,” she commented as she started pulling things out to help. The barrier was still showing signs of instability, flickering lightning like surges of electricity flowing sporadically along the curve.   
“Gee, not invisible anymore.”

“No. Ow.” It wasn't like him to complain as he was getting patched up, but ears hurt; much like toes, fingers and noses.

“Sorry. It needs cleaning,” she pointed out as she wet down a cotton pad with peroxide to clean off the blood and make sure the wound was washed out. “At least it's not alcohol. I did that on an ear once and just about slapped myself for doing it,” she continued with a laugh. “There. Pad, tape … hmm, may lose a hair or two when this comes off. I did not claim to be a professional.”

“True.” Odd, even the throbbing seemed to be distancing. “What did you …?”

“Antibiotic ointment with pain killer. I am not just a pretty face,” she added, striking a pin up pose without thinking.

“No, you're not.” He was content to let his eyes do the wandering. “How many more?”

“More what? … Oh, skulls … uhm … probably two, actually. There are seven in the legend, but five points for a pentagram.”

He snorted his derision. “I've seen horror movies … well, I've read some scripts. Pentagrams always seem important.”

“Stars have five points and a center. Stars in circles, pentagrams, use three of the most potent power gathering forms available: the circle to enclose, the star to draw, the pentagonal center to focus. “ She looked around at the house. “Ah. Bedroom is bisecting the focus. The other two skulls are probably at or near the front corners of the house.”

“And what do they focus?”

“Ah … good question. Rose quartz for … er … physical lust. Blue for … I got no idea. Black: power/anger. There are actually four more possibilities: Clear crystal, green jade, white jade, red crystal. The jades are control substances, the clear is a focal point and red is... red's mentioned in the sources and then the powers that be censor it. Even the foremost writers gloss over it. Which probably makes it a bad ass item or … totally legendary.”

“Front corners.”

They looked at the logistics. Ed slid down the wall and found that by the time it got to the front of the house the area between the barrier and the house was too narrow to work in. It was the same on the other side of the house. “We can't get to them.”

“Damn.” Kelsy met his look and sighed. “OK. We can't get to either of the other skulls.”

“Assuming that's what is being used.”

Kelsy rolled her eyes at him. “Fine, don't believe me. However,” she pointed at the barrier which was getting larger and larger internal discharges, “you may have weakened it enough to allow us to break through.”

“How?” He eyed the dome with a frown. 

“First we try it my way. If that doesn't work, we find a really long electrical cord and see if we can make a breach that way.”

“What's your way?” he asked.

She took a breath and released it. “We see if my mentor in certain esoteric teachings has his act together.”

They walked back to where he'd pulled the blue skull out of the dirt. “This should be the weakest point.”

Ed looked at it critically. The electrical display did all seem to be heading toward rather than moving away from this point. “Looks that way.” He surveyed the area, wondering why no one was at least watching the display. “Now what?”

Kelsy sat down and focused on the barrier, then on her breathing and running over a specific practically unpronounceable chant in her head. “Find me a stick.”

Ed found a stick and handed it to her. Quickly she drew what looked like some kind of flaming A with feathers in the dirt he'd disturbed digging up the artifact. He heard her muttered words, but couldn't make any sense of them. Patiently, he waited as Kelsy centered down, finding her core, finding her faith and find that flare of internal power that she'd need to make this work. 

She got to her feet with grace and power, the escaped hairs around her face beginning to lift as though with static electricity. Her lips moved in cadences of a language not suited to human vocal chords as she gathered energy from the grass and the earth beneath her feet. “Elder Ones guide me. Let this place be cleansed of the Old Ones influence.“ She held her right arm out straight, hand with palm outwards toward the barrier. “Na – Thet!” She exclaimed and touched the wall, pushing against it.

Ed, standing behind the symbol in the dirt, watched with his eyes wide as Kelsy became the focus of the electrical currents. Like touching a Tesla ball, the currents flowed to her hand. Her hand was moving through the barrier. She pushed forward slowly, ever so slowly, but she was getting through until she lifted her foot to step forward. The barrier exploded, throwing Kelsy backwards into Ed and carrying them both into the yard. 

“Crap,” Kelsy said distinctly before passing out.

Ed struggled to get out from under her and see what damage she had sustained. Her palm was blistered and burned. He patted the cuff of the shirt to put out the small flames lapping their way up her arms, then rolled the sleeve away from her wrist. The damage there was not as bad. Her hair was singed on the edges and around her face, the tip of her nose blistered. Other than that, the damage was minimal.  
He grabbed the med kit and set to work.


	13. Satellites of Doom

“Col. Freeman!” Lt. Ellis yelled suddenly, summoning her superior over to her station.

“What is it?”

“There's something wrong with tracking. Look, here's where we had the Interceptors heading for Earth five minutes ago. Now, the readings are like this.” The tracking system was blinking, the blips representing the Interceptors moving backwards and forwards with each blip.

“Get the pilots on radio.”

Gay nodded and called the pilots. Static replied. “Lt. Ellis to Interceptor pilots, respond. Captain Bradley, Intercept Leader, respond.”

“Brad … some.. . Goin … we …........ orders?”

“Captain, repeat last message. You're breaking up.”

“Something ….. instruments …. getting …... over,” came the reply.

“Still breaking up. Are you in difficulty?”

“Shit!” That came through loud and clear making both Alec and Gay jump. 

“Marc! What's happening?” Gay responded urgently.

“Something's happening to space. Instruments are going crazy. We're not getting through.” Marc finally came through clearly. “This is crazy … it's like space is getting hazy, cloudy … “

Gay looked at Alec with a frown. “Col. Freeman?”

“Bring them back. Now,” Alec ordered. 

“Captain Bradley, return to base. All of you back to base, now,” Gay gave the order to return. Static.   
“Captain Bradley. Marc. Eric. Brandon. Come in. Respond!” She looked up again. “I've lost them. Communications are down. Col., we're defenseless if they're gone.”

“The new ships?”

“Still in outfitting, sir. It will be hours before we can get them up and running. I'll get the crews on it, but if we get a spinner attack now ...”

“We're sitting ducks. Tell the crews to get moving. Get me HQ on the line.” Where the hell was Straker when they needed him?

Gay relayed the order to the Interceptor crews while Nina put through the call to Virginia Lake. The crews were already working hard and were closer to finishing the refit on the new ships than Gay realized. The crew leader for the current shift assured her they were moving as fast as possible while keeping the safety track record they already had.

“Lake here.”

“Freeman. We have a problem. Something is interfering with the Interceptors getting to those satellites. Is there any other way to get to them?” Alec gave her a quick briefing. 

“We're isolated, Alec. We haven't broken through yet. Dobbson and his crew are working on the external area, looking for anything suspicious. They've only just found out we're still here. I'll see if I can get a message to the Sky Divers. There's been no activity here, but I'm worried about the SkyDivers all trying to cover us while we figure out the answer.”

“Satellites should have a destruct code. See if the SkyDivers can find the signal wavelength and get those things out of our hair.”

“We'll see what we can do. Can you jam the broadcasts from your side?” Virginia asked. She hated feeling helpless, but knew that all of their people were doing what they could to work things out. 

“Why didn't I think of that?” Alec asked. “We'll work on it. We don't know if the interceptors are going to make it back. All communications are down between us and … damn!” He backed away from the microphone he was using as the back feed nearly deafened them all. “Virginia? Virginia! Dammit!”

“Sorry, sir. We're blocked. Something is happening out there. They've added layers to the signal. I'm doing what I can to block it here, but without Joan ...`” She trailed off. 

“Got it!” Nina crowed abruptly. “I can block it coming in here and I think I've got a variable frequency to get to the Interceptors.” She turned back to her own console and tried to contact the Interceptors that were out. “Interceptor One, this is Lt. Berry, please respond. Repeat, Interceptor One, this is Lt. Barry, Moonbase, please respond.”

After a moment's silence, Captain Marc Bradley's voice came through sounding a little tinny, but otherwise understandable. “Interceptor One to Base, I'm hearing you. A little thin, but clear. Status?”

“Heading back. Instruments are still malfunctioning. ETA half an hour or so. Bradley out.” 

There was a collective sigh of relief from the control room crew at that announcement. Gay looked at Alec. “We’ll keep a monitor on them, but our scans are not accurate any more. I’ve run a diagnostic on SID. There’s nothing alien about what’s going on … or … not technologically alien. There’s not a spinner within detection range.”

“But there is something alien about those satellites. Get me pictures of them. I want to see if the labs at base can see anything that might help.”

“Yes, Sir!”

In the infirmary, Jan Carson, one of Moonbase’s newer medical personnel, was keeping an eye on Lt. Harrington’s vital signs. His every 15 minute check was worrying him, but he knew that the command center had its own issues. As a precaution, he added sheepskin lined restraints to Joan’s wrists and ankles. It wouldn’t do to have the Lt. to awaken and take out personnel on her way to do whatever the sound waves were telling her to do. 

Jan didn’t care for the brain wave readings he was getting. The first readings were almost flat lined, only beta and gamma waves operating and those at really low levels. Now there were jumps in all brain activity, but Lt. Harrington was definitely unconscious, or, at least, unresponsive to external stimulus. Alien damage to pilots and the stress of living on the Moon were bad enough, but this was outside his experience entirely.


	14. Breaking the Barrier

Kelsy awoke to the slow throb of her pulse in her hands. Something smelled good. Slowly, keeping her abused hands clear of everything, she got off the couch and headed for the kitchen, following the delicious smells. Ed was just taking something out of the oven, his own fingers gauze wrapped as well. 

“Hola. That smells wonderful, although your hands look a bit battered.”

“Oatmeal cakes. Extension cord, not a successful idea,” he replied. 

“Damn. So, electricity not the answer, no matter how much it looks like it should be,” she analyzed his answer.

“No,” Ed agreed dryly. “Let them cool,” he admonished as she reached for one of the small cakes he’d just set on the cooling rack. 

“But I’m hungry,” Kelsy responded plaintively with a pout that quickly turned into giggles. “Sorry. You sounded just like my Aunt Safira.”

“Saphira?”

“With an ‘f’,” Kelsy corrected as though she could see inside his head. His look set her giggling again. “Any English speaker who’s not a little kid tends to make that mistake. Safira Bey, the wife of the youngest son of my great grandfather’s best friend.” She thought about that for a moment. “That sounds complicated, doesn’t it?”

“Very,” he agreed.

“Well, Granddad only had my Dad. Ardeth Bey had … eight sons and four daughters. His youngest son is about two years older than my Dad. He and Rashid bonded, thus Aunt Safira, or Saffi because I couldn’t pronounce her name when we met. “

“Where do they live?”

“California,” came the quick answer.

“Now?” he pursued.

“Oh, now. Uhm. Rashid is …” She closed her eyes and screwed up her face in thought. “’85 … 85 … “ she muttered. “Um … He’s … ok … Dad’s …h mmm … 57 from 85 is …28?” She opened one eye to look at him curiously.

“Yes,” Ed agreed, trying not to laugh. “Math not one of your strong suites?”

She almost fell out of her chair laughing. “Give me Egyptian dynastic dates and I’m great. Ages of people I love? Who cares? Anyway, if Dad’s 28 then Rashid Bey is 30 and just finishing up his Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He kicks ass …” She caught his look at the term. “I did agree that not so elegant in the language department was a part of when I belong, yes?”

“You did,” Ed said, nodding. “They’re cool enough to eat,” he told her, gesturing to the cakes on the rack. 

“Cool!” She grabbed for one and discovered that gauze and oatmeal do not work well together. “Any more bright ideas?”

“Forks.”

“Oh, yeah. “ She waited as he opened a drawer and handed her the indicated implement. Digging in she found the cakes were much better than regular cooked oatmeal. “Wow. He cooks, too. Y’know, keep this up and I may just have to marry you.”

“It wouldn’t work.”

The amber eyes held his for a long minute, seeing things he thought were tucked neatly away. “Oh … Oh my. Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean … I really … Dammit, Ed. I’m in love with you,” she finished, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Ed snorted. “Wow, inelegant,” she retorted with a laugh.

“You’re just in lust, Ms. O’Connell,” he pointed out. “A reaction to the … skulls.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, Ed Straker. You do not get out of this that easily.” She was out of the chair and on his side of the table before he could move out of the way. She plumped down on his lap and ran her arms around him. “I am not just in lust with this … mmm … wonderful body of yours.” She stared him in the eyes while her hands ran over his back and came to rest on his waist. “Oh, no. There is much more to this than simple lust. Simple lust does not spend three days coming to a head … if you’ll pardon the expression,” she ended with a laugh. 

He tried to stay rigid, willing her away from him. It didn’t work so he relaxed and kept his eyes on hers. “This isn’t real. We’re not in love.”

“You may not be in love, Ed. I fell in love with you… ,” she stopped to think. “When I was six. There’s a stele at the Cairo Museum, way back in the back. It’s actually not Egyptian, but it’s old, very old. His name is Edikiliki. Like Enkidu and Gilgamesh, he is the stuff of legend. “ She cupped his face in her hands. “He is the spitting image of one Ed Straker.” She touched a finger tip to his lips. “I know. You are not Edikiliki. You are not the ancient warrior who protected his people and about whom tales I will never hear were told. You are Ed Straker … “ Her eyes were suddenly wide in wonder. “You were a warrior. You are a warrior.” She looked at the window to the back yard. “It is you they wanted to trap and destroy, but me as well,” she continued in a softer voice. “You are the stuff of legend, or they would not have done this.” She looked back at him, her mouth open slightly and then grinned broadly. “I know how to get us out.” The hug took him by surprise as did the quick kiss on the mouth before she stood and grabbed his hand. “Come on. We have a barrier to break.”

In the yard she quickly grabbed the skulls and set them in a triangle, the alien looking skull facing the back of the house, the rose skull and the obsidian one facing the two holes where they had been buried. “Ash … I need ash … no, wood.” The small table was quickly sacrificed to make a triangle with the skulls at the angles. “Isosceles … good enough.”She cast a glance at the barrier which was now nearly solid with running lines of power. “Give me your hands … oh, shoot. This needs skin contact.” She frowned at her hands. “This is soooo gonna hurt. Help me unwrap.”

He gave her an impish look. “Do we have to be on opposite sides?” he asked.

“Well, no …”

Ed stepped behind her and slid his hands under her shirt, the skin of his palms and most of his fingers touching the warmth of her stomach. His touch rested lightly there, not erotic, just comforting. “That do?” he whispered into her hair.

“Yes,” she breathed, wishing that they were not in such danger. 

Ed listened as she calmed her breathing, sinking into a rhythm he found soothing. He watched as she lifted her arms and spread them in a curve. Light flickered between the skulls at their feet. She stepped forward. Ed followed until they stood centered in the triangle. Kelsy’s breathing deepened as she lifted her arms further, making a circle, fingertips touching over her head. 

“Repeat what I say,” she breathed. He did. The syllables were alien, hard on the throat, but he could feel the ripples in her muscles, tension that ebbed and flowed through her and then through him. 

A faint shimmer surrounded them and then pushed outward. The words gained in volume and force until the glow touched the wall trapping them inside. A faint beat as of distant drums filled his head. Visions flickered around them of things he wished he had not seen. The aliens of his war were bad enough, these were … horrors. His breathing grew ragged as he struggled to continue to support the woman in his arms.

“K – Ia! Na-gat-ha La!” They yelled together.

Kelsy turned in his arms and pulled him to the ground, her arms sheltering his head as the world shattered around them. The only bastion against the agony pouring through him was her touch. Ed Straker screamed as he died.

Only he didn’t.


	15. Back in contact

She made a grumbly noise. He kissed her again, deeply this time until her soft lips responded and she wiggled around to try to put her arms around him before she was completely awake again. She sat up with a gasp of pain as she hit the remains of one of the skulls. “Ow,” she complained as they smacked foreheads. She gave him a look which he returned ruefully, rubbing his forehead. 

“We’re alive,” he pointed out.

Kelsy, her eyes watering between the thok on the head and the jab of stone fragments, took a moment to absorb his statement. She looked around. The barrier was clear. Or it was gone. She got to her feet, staring at where the wall had been. She looked down at Ed who wasn’t completely following yet before stepping across the yard to the hole the lapis skull had come out of. She stretched a hand out to where the barrier had been and nearly jumped out of her skin when Ed yelled as he scrambled to his feet. 

She whirled to face him. “Must you! You scared me!”

Ed looked a little abashed for a moment, then straightened. “If it’s not gone, I don’t want you getting hurt again,” he pointed out reasonably. 

“And heart failure wouldn’t hurt how?” she asked before turning back to the barrier. It was a rhetorical question anyway. She stumbled as she reached out to touch the barrier and fell right through where it should have been, landing on her hands and knees. 

Ed rushed to her side, reaching for her before realizing the barrier was gone and they were free. Free. He left her in the grass to get to the phone in his car.

“Looks like the blush is off the rose,” Kelsy commented to herself as she watched him round the front of the house and disappear. She got to her feet, noting that the black and blue skulls were dust while the rose crystal one was still intact. She wondered what that said about things, but decided that removing the other two skulls was probably a good idea to keep them from being used again. That was assuming they were still in one piece. 

Ed, realizing his car was locked, had gone back in the house and used the phone there to try to contact his people. Miss Ealand answered her phone immediately. The relief in her voice was clear as she ascertained that he was all right and had just been … inconvenienced by the situation at his home. He could hear the worry in her voice as she responded to his questions in a very circumspect manner. HQ was in trouble, though not actually under attack. 

“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” he advised and cut the connection as Kelsy came into the room. He eyed her coldly, shoving aside the memories of the past days and her companionship. “We’re going,” he told her.

“Want to retrieve the other two skulls first?” she asked as she set the rose one on the coffee table. “They’re not the kind of thing you want just hanging around, you know. “

“True.” He collected a shovel from the storeroom and they went to dig up the two remaining skulls. Ed wasn’t certain he was comfortable with Kelsy’s accuracy about the number of skulls. The first one was between the rose quartz and the obsidian one in size, carved out of an unflawed piece of milky white jade. The second one was the same size as the rose one; clear and red. Kelsy looked stunned as he unearthed the item. 

She batted his hand away as he reached for it. “Not bare handed,” she reminded him as she handed him the shirt she’d used for the black one earlier. 

“What’s this one stand for?” he asked, although he did use the shirt to protect him from any influence of the skull.

“Crimson skull: death, destruction, fire from the sky, blood on the earth. I’m surprised it’s here. “ Kelsy met his gaze. “I know, you don’t believe. I don’t always. I live in a world dominated by logic and technology. But … there’s always that big “but” in there. Logic and technology don’t explain what happened here, the barrier, the influences …”

“The sex,” he added. 

“Oh, no,” she contradicted him, giving him that long lazy look that made him want to throw discretion to the winds and carry her off into the bedroom for a while. “No, the sex was influenced, but not forced. Don’t you even try to tell me that was forced. I know better.” 

“Do you?” Ed the Ice Man came fully to the surface. “Do you?”

“Let’s get these put away and go see what your people need from us,” Kelsy told him quietly. “We’ll talk about us later.”

Us. Was there an ‘us’? He doubted it. He locked up the house before letting Kelsy into his car. The drive to Harlington-Straker studios was silent, Ed not knowing what he would find and Kelsy knowing that her words would mean nothing until his people were safe. She sat back and enjoyed the ride.

The guards on the gate waved Straker’s car through. Five minutes later, Kelsy in tow, he was in Miss Ealand’s office demanding a full briefing as he headed through to his office. Miss Ealand indicated her notice of Kelsy with a raise of her perfectly groomed eyebrows. She followed them into the office and flinched as the box containing the voice recognition access screeched at her boss. 

“Sorry, sir. We’re in communication with HQ, but only through Moonbase at this time. There’s a … barrier. Invisible and apparently somewhat dome shaped.” She saw the look the Commander and his companion exchanged. “There are also two satellites in orbit that are broadcasting an unusual signal. Moonbase has had one case of an apparently psychotic episode triggered by the signals when combined.”

“Who?” Ed demanded, praying it wasn’t Alec. 

“Lt. Harrington, sir. She was working on signals when she attacked Col. Freeman and Lt.s Ellis and Barry. They subdued her by cutting off access to the sound and she is in medical under Dr. Carson’s care. He’s keeping her sedated until the current situation is resolved. “

“Good. Get me Alec … no.” He turned to Kelsy. “More skulls?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” she answered. “But it’s hard to say. Maybe … “ She thought for a moment. “Maybe they set up a resonance situation … smaller or similar materials and constructs,” she explained. “The major field held you captive, the resonance field keeps your people captive?”

Ed considered what Kelsy had told him. “Wouldn't it be more efficient to use the skulls to trap the larger area?”

“Depends on what you want … to … have happen.” Kelsy looked thoughtful, met his gaze and blushed. “There is a possibility that whatever they triggered in the smaller site was reflected to the larger.” Ed paused as he considered her theory. A faint rise of color in his own face told her that he was thinking what she was. “Be glad we went where we did,” she added softly enough that the others in the room missed what she said. “What if the black one had taken ascendancy? Or the blue one ...” her voice trailed off. 

Ed remembered what he felt as he held the small obsidian skull in his hand, the surge of power, of feeling that he could do anything he wished and all should tremble at his slightest wish. The need to hurt had touched something deep in the darkest side of him. He felt shame at surrendering to those urges, even for the short time he had. He met Kelsy's amber gaze and nearly reached for her, to apologize, to offer comfort. Her smile told him he was forgiven. How could he doubt her? Yet a part of him did. Commander Straker of SHADO had to doubt her because she was an unknown. Ed ignored the part of him that was yelling that there was very little unknown about the woman before him and enjoying every last memory of what they had done. 

He took a breath and looked to Miss Ealand. “Any reports of … possibly externally influenced activity in HQ while I was out of touch?” He didn't know where to look. Miss Ealand failed to meet his gaze and her color rose slightly. Kelsy was trying hard not to smirk at the thought of his people in that kind of disarray. The question in his mind was, with SHADO out of commission, where were the aliens?

On Moonbase, Alec was asking the same question of the command staff. “We've been down nearly four days, incapable of response from the planet. Where are they?”

Lt. Ellis looked up and shook her head, shifting the shining strands of her wig. “Frankly, sir, none of this makes any sense. I'd have expected the aliens to hit us the first chance they got. Now, the interceptors are back, the pilots are a little shaken, but quite capable of heading out again. It's either something very big ...” She hesitated to voice the rest of her thoughts. 

“Or something not our aliens,” Alec finished the sentence for her. Their eyes met in worried agreement. 

The aliens were powerful. They commanded ships that crossed interstellar distances, as far as they could tell. The ships were not as sturdy in atmosphere and the aliens themselves could not survive long on Earth; yet they came and harvested humans as though they were food animals. The aliens knew that humans were sentient, yet still they came. This argued desperation on their part. It was sometimes hard to reconcile their technology with the need to steal organs from humans. This situation did not match known alien behavior. If SHADO couldn't stop whatever was happening, couldn't get the entire organization back into functioning, they were doomed. 

“We have to find a way to get those satellites down,” Alec finally spoke. 

“We've sent the pictures to HQ. Maybe they can find a way to at least jam the signal.”

Internal communications came through suddenly. “Lt. Ellis. Col. Freeman. This is Dr. Carson. Lt. Harrington is awake. She is asking to speak to you both.”

“On our way,” Gay answered him. “Nina, you're in charge. Let us know if anything happens.”

Lt. Barry nodded her understanding as the two left the command module at a quick walk. Running on Moonbase took some care.

Joan was awake, her bed tilted to let her sit up without removing the restraints. She looked at Gay and Alec with haunted dark eyes. “I'm sorry,” were the first words out of her mouth. 'I … “

“Take your time,” Alec told her. He didn't like her look, it worried him.

“The sounds. I recognized them. I couldn't … I couldn't stop myself. Oh, God ...” Tears rolled down her face. “You don't know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Childhood fears surfaced, tearing at her, cutting through the barriers in her mind and flooding her with memories of horror. “I was born in the Bahamas. We moved to Jamaica, following my father's job. There was a little town on the coast. We moved into a big house there. We didn't know … all the people were new people. No one knew, no one remembered … “ The town in flames, disfigured looking men shambling through the streets, killing everyone … no, not everyone. They took the women, all the women and disappeared … 

Joan took a couple of ragged breaths and tried to shift the memories to something usable. “The sound the satellites are broadcasting, it was the same one behind the men who destroyed the town in Jamaica. The men came from the sea, not from space. They … they took any woman who did not fight hard enough to force the invaders to kill them. I don't know who they are, what they are, only that they are … if we are animals to the aliens, we are less than that to whatever needs those sounds. We have to destroy the satellites.” She tugged at the manacles, then lay back with a resigned sound. “I cannot help. I am tainted by what happened. They can control me. Stop them. Something terrible will happen ...”

For just a moment, her sight flickered and it was as though she were standing in space beside one of the satellites. The triangular plane cornered by the moon and each of the broadcasters was opaque, blocking her view of the stars on the other side. Something … something tugged at her, drawing her to the center of the triangle. There was something on the other side, something huge and ancient and terrible in the old meaning of the word. The surface shimmered as the thing on the other side touched the opacity and Joan suddenly understood that this was a doorway. A dozen tentacles, sharp tipped and dripping, shot out of the center and toward her. She screamed as they caught her, pierced her, held her, violated her, drained her soul and absorbed her body.

Alec, Gay and Jan stared in horror as Joan's body became blackened ooze soaking into the sheets of the bed and dripping onto the floor. Her last word a terrified scream wrenched from the depths of her being: Nyarlathotep.


	16. Stop the Broadcast

It took a few minutes for Alec and Gay to recover from watching their friend and coworker become a puddle of black goo. Gay struggled to say something, anything and then closed her mouth to meet Alec's startled gaze. She teared up and suppressed a sob. Work now, hysterics later, when she had time for them, if she ever did. 

“We need to let Col. Lake know,” she told him in a shaky voice. 

Alec nodded. “Yeah.” If he wondered how the hell Gay was keeping it together, he didn't show it. 

They raced back to the control room, Gay stopping at Carson's desk long enough to order Lt. Barry to get HQ on the line pronto. She was gone before Nina could ask her what had happed. Gay's wide dark eyes looked haunted as they sped back to the command center of Moonbase.

“We can't let anyone else listen to that broadcast. We have to find a way to jam it if we can't get the satellites down,” she muttered as they moved through the hallways.

“Agreed. But how?” Alec asked.

She looked over at him. “Ford. He's got to find a way.”

She said the same thing to Virginia as they reported on the demise of Lt. Harrington. “She told us of an attack on the town where she grew up. Men coming out of the sea and stealing women. The last thing she said was a word. I don't understand it, but it sounded like “nyarlythotep”. “ She stumbled on the word with it's inhuman grouping of vowels and consonants. “The interceptors are back, we are ready if the aliens come, but I am beginning to suspect that they will stay away until we defeat this new menace.”

“I hope you're right,” Virginia told her. 

“Lt. Ellis. We have communication coming through from ...SkyDiver? They're using a satellite relay through SID.” Nina sounded astonished.

“Col., we're in contact with SkyDiver 1.”

The SkyDiver units had converged on the British Isles at the request of Dobbson and Miss Ealand. They were on full alert status, keeping an eye out for spinners and awaiting orders; the Sky units running two up and one down with overlapping cycles to keep the island safe. All three captains were relieved to hear that Straker had shown up unharmed and was working on the situation even if his actions were a little strange.

Ed and Kelsy headed out of Ealand's office to inspect the outer edge of the barrier they could locate. 

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Kelsy complained as they started out across an area of hot concrete.

Ed looked back at her and then looked down at Kelsy's shapely feet, which were bare. “You steal my pants and shirt but not my shoes?” He asked, trying not to be amused. 

“They didn't fit,” she shot back. 

He looked around and spotted a production assistant. “You!” he called. 

The young woman came over, her jaw dropping as she recognized the head of the studio. “Yes, sir, Mr. Straker. What can I do for you?”

“What's your name?”

“Janine, sir,” she introduced herself breathlessly. Oh, god! They'd never believe she talked to HIM herself! 

“My friend needs a pair of shoes. Low heels, she's going to do a lot of walking. Think you can find something in wardrobe that will fit?” he asked.

She looked at the incredible red head beside him with the warm grin that started focused on him and ended on the PA. “Sure. Size?”

“9 American … I can't remember the English version at the moment.”

“Oh, that's fine,” Janine told her. “Give me about five minutes.” She took off at a run, facilitated by her tennis shoes. 

“OK, that's cute,” Kelsy commented as she watched the girl run off. 

“I'm glad you like her,” Ed answered as he surveyed the area trying to figure out how someone might have inserted anything to put the barrier in place when he realized that it was acting much as the other had just before they figured out how to take it down.

“Actually, I was thinking how you handle the hero worship,” Kelsy told him.

“What?”

“You really don't see it, do you? That's probably why it happens. You don't ask anything of someone else that you don't ask of yourself. You're really insanely admirable, you know. One of the things I love about you.” That got a frosty look. “We will talk later.” I hope, she added mentally. There was an outside chance that once this was over, she wouldn't be available to talk. 

Janine was back with a pair of slip on deck style shoes. Kelsy thanked her, slid the shoes on and pronounced herself ready to go. The PA asked if there was anything else she could do for them, her eyes fixed on Straker. 

“Thank you, no. You need to get back to the production you're working on,” he told her, dismissing the young woman from his mind as well as his presence. 

Janine nodded, but stood there watching as the two walked away from her. She sighed, clutching her clipboard to her. Clipboard. Shit! She glanced down at the schedule on the board and took off at a run. What was she thinking? 

Kelsy giggled as she noticed the explosion of movement behind them. Ed frowned at her. “ You just don't get it,” she said, amused at his complete lack of awareness. No wonder his people adored him.

They found the barrier looking like special effects out of a semi-bad sci fi movie. Cautiously, they split up to look for any kind of disturbance in the ground at the base of the barrier. It took half an hour to find two spots where the concrete was broken. With care, Straker had Dobbson's people pull up the concrete to find marble sized skulls in the holes. The first one held three of the rose quartz ones. They found three of the blue alien looking ones in the second hole. 

Kelsy came up, holding the small pink skulls in her shirt so her skin would not touch them. Somehow, dragging Ed to the ground and having her way with him here and now seemed like a wonderful idea that could make a lot of trouble for both of them. “We should probably bag them separately.” Suggesting a black hole to bury them in didn't seem like a good idea just now either, although Kelsy was certain it would be a good idea if there was one handy.

The barrier was nearly solid with streaks of energy running through it. Ed eyed it warily. Could they take it down as they had the smaller version. Kelsy, apparently following his thoughts, shook her head. She gestured to the skull replicas. “They're not big enough. I'm kinda wondering why this one is still running when the other one is down. If it was a resonance, this should be gone. Shit!” she yanked him back as the barrier bulged toward him.

“Uhm, I think we've disrupted something,” she yelled over a the rising buzz of the energy wall as it continued to bulge outward, toward Ed, almost as if reaching for him in a last gasp effort. She grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the way as the wall became amorphous and gelatinous. “Na – Thet!” She yelled, holding up a hand toward the moving goo. “Run!” She screamed over the increased buzzing sound coming from the thing. She shoved Ed away. “Get your people away from this thing. Now!” 

Swallowing his immediate reaction, he nodded to his people and gestured for them to move out, those that already weren't backing away. The thing started extruding pseudopods and picking up speed as it oozed across the concrete. 

Kelsy frantically searched her memories for some way to deal with what looked like a giant shoggath, maybe. Shit. Where the hell was her mentor when she needed him? Buried in the sands of Ahm Shere. Crap! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! There had to be something … Shriving. Oh, boy. Not something to be done lightly, but people were gonna die if she didn't. She stopped a couple of yards away and centered down. She opened her mind to the forces at play here: the earth under the concrete, the machines around her, the people around her, Ed. The wall of the thing was inches away from her when she opened her eyes. She pulled the love she had built with Ed to center her energy flow and let the whispered syllables of the Shriving Spell pass her lips. She touched the thing with her fingertip. The goo vanished in a cone where she touched it. The spell ate its way through the creature until it writhed away from her touch and began to pull in on itself.

She began to tremble with the effort of holding the spell. The shoggath was a fraction of its original bulk when she finally convulsed and fell. Strong arms folded around her. She looked up into pale eyes and smiled. “ I think I got it. Don't touch it.” Her eyes glazed over and she passed out.


	17. Threats of the Shoggath

Ed looked at the unconscious woman in his arms and then at the quivering mass on the ground a few feet away. Was that an eye? Gently, he lowered Kelsy to the ground and pulled his gun. It was an eye. The body of the amorphous jelly thing was taking on the color of the concrete and staring at him. It formed a mouth. Ed’s gut clenched as the thing took on a vaguely humanoid shape, gray skinned, eyes spaced disproportionately on the lumpy top. 

“Ssssssttrrraakkerrrrrrrrrr,” the thing slurred, it’s voice in all the wrong tones and the mouth working in a bizarre manner to make sound at all. “Ssttraaakerrrr,” it intoned again. 

Nothing he’d ever faced, not Vietnam, not aliens, not the worst nightmares he’d ever had, made him shake with terror the way this thing did. He took a breath and exhaled. If Kelsy could face this and not fall, he would not dishonor her actions by shrinking away. “I’m Straker,” he answered it. 

The top bent sideways in a travesty of a human gesture. The mouth spread in a loose lipped smile, thick goo drooling over the edge of the bottom to slide down the side of the creature and pool on the ground. “Straker,” it echoed. “Com ..man .. der .. Shaaaadooo. Fool. You cannot win.”

“Who says?” Straker practically snarled, waving his people to stay back, to stay behind him. 

“We who know so say, Straker of SHADO. The world ends today. Your world. We will rise …” The shoggath made a funny gurgling noise and subsided into a pool with dead eyes floating on the surface, the mouth hanging open as a dead man’s might. The gelatinous form lost cohesion and started to spread out in a pool of rapidly putrefying goo. 

What the hell? Straker stared at the puddle and remembered to keep his shoes out of it. There was no knowing if it was dangerous dead as well as alive. Movement from the parking bay caught his eye. Lake, Foster and several security personnel were running out. 

“Commander!” Lake called as she neared him, barely casting a glance at the puddle. 

“Don’t step in it,” he cautioned and noted Foster’s quick move to keep one of their supporters from touching the mass. “Well, Col. Lake, Foster,” he greeted them with a nod. “I see you’re alive.”

“Yes, sir,” Lake agreed. “But it’s been an interesting few days trying to figure out what’s going on. Two satellites were launched while we were down, sir. They’re broadcasting a signal that in combination is very dangerous. Ford thinks he has a counter frequency that should jam the signal. We sent the information to Sky 1 and Shadair as soon as we had carrier signal. Ford and Ayshea have been monitoring our ability to get signal out from the moment we became aware of the problem.”

If Straker noticed the slight blush that accompanied that admission, he ignored it. “SID?” he asked, thinking the broadcast would be better from the satellite they had scanning the system to track alien ships.

“If the aliens are involved, this would be a perfect time to hit us on the ground. I left SID to do the job it was designed to do, sir.”

Straker nodded. “Good thinking, although I believe that the aliens are as scared of this situation as we have been.”

Foster blinked but kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t every day Commander Straker used the word scared. “Ford’s on the line with Col. Freeman and Lt. Ellis as well. They’re going to see if they can boost the jamming signal from there. We still don’t know why we could contact Moonbase, but we had a line through to them.”

Col. Lake hesitated before informing Straker that they’d had one casualty, Lt. Harrington. “Dr. Jackson …”

“Was involved?” Straker’s eyes were cold as he considered how much damage the Doctor could do to them. 

“Not the way you might think. He … passed out when the phrase that Lt. Harrington yelled was repeated and then Lt. Belmont tried to kill him. Something about sacrificing him to the Old Ones,” Col. Lake explained. 

On the ground behind him, Kelsy groaned as she regained consciousness. He looked around and went to her, helping her sit up. “Ow,” she complained as she leaned her head against him. 

“You say that a lot,” he told her.

“Probably because hanging around you, I have cause to say it a lot, silly,” she smiled up at him. “Did we get it?”

“You and Keith Ford.”

“I’ve met Mr. Ford?”

“Not yet. Let’s get you inside.” He helped her to her feet and refrained from objecting when she continued to lean against him. “How does one safely dispose of that?” Ed nodded to the puddle discoloring the concrete and beginning to eat away at the surface. 

“Burn it. And don’t inhale the fumes,” she answered. “Damn, I’m tired,” she announced as she snuggled her head against Ed’s shoulder. “Mmmm. Nice. Smells nice too,” she mumbled.

“No drifting off to sleep until I get you inside,” he admonished.

Her grin was infinitely feline and satisfied looking.

Inside, medical personnel took Kelsy off to see Dr. Jackson, presuming she stayed awake long enough to do so. Also presuming Dr. Jackson was up to it. Straker was brought up to date on what had happened while they were out of communication. Although he was embarrassed by what had happened on some levels, he was also very proud of his people for working through the problem with so few casualties. 

“There is the issue of the satellites, sir,” Ford pointed out. “While we have the broadcast jammed for the moment, Shadair and the Sky units can’t continue to block them. I’m getting some indication that someone is monitoring and tweaking the signals. It’s going to take the shuttle to take them out permanently, sir.”

“Can we keep up the jamming signal for 48 hours? It’s going to take that long to get a shuttle up there.”

Ford thought for a moment and nodded before looking to Col. Lake for confirmation. She nodded. “It’s your field, Keith. Route and schedule people where you need them.” Straker nodded his agreement to Lake’s assessment. Ford scurried off to get things set up. It would take some doing, but he could keep a steady rotation of Sky units and Shadair 1 and 2 in the air until the shuttle could take over and remove the satellites.

Straker looked at Lake and Foster for a moment before giving his next order. “I need a full report of this incident on my desk in 24 hours.” He had been expecting Lake and Foster to react to that and held up a hand before either could speak. “SHADO only, for my benefit. The committee only needs to know that we were … confined for approximately 72 hours and are investigating the alien technology that produced the effect. The full report will be eyes only. No one outside of administration staff will ever see it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they responded. Lake’s look of inquiry caught him as he turned away.

“Yes, Col?”

“Your report, sir?” The look she gave him was speculative, but not wickedly so. With a sigh, he agreed that his portion would be available also. 

With that, he walked into his office and closed the door behind him. Hell. Kelsy O’Connell was a loose end. How did he deal with her? First, he should find out more about her family.


	18. Solutions and Exits

The O’Connell family had a long record of odd behavior and incidents including rumors of mummies that came to life. Kelsy Anita O’Connell was born in 1975 to Richard and Juanala O’Connell, both archaeologists, which made the young lady in question ten years old. Currently, Richard and Zi Lin, Kelsy’s Chines grandmother, were in Cairo working on an exhibit with the Cairo Museum of Natural History. The exhibit was rumored to equal or surpass the Tutankamun displays. Juanala O’Connell was working on her dissertation in Oaxaca and Kelsy was with her father and grandmother in Cairo. Whoever the woman Straker knew was, she was not Kelsy O’Connell.

Ed sighed as he set aside the report. On one hand, Kelsy had told him she came from the future. She had mentioned items that were logical extrapolations of where technology was going. She also displayed … what? Powers? that were not natural. Incidents and actions since she arrived put her on the side of the angels … Well, most of them, anyway. Three days of pure, unadulterated … sex; fun; heady intoxication inspired by … magic?

His mind refused to accept that. He knew the aliens could somehow steal life force from one human and give it to another, but to take a woman from the future and put her in the past; that was the stuff of fantasy and science fiction. He practically echoed one of Kelsy’s snorts at that. No, there was a more mundane explanation of Kelsy O’Connell, regardless of the incidents he’d experienced with her.

Straker moved on to the shuttle schedule. Good, 35.4 hours and counting to the window for launch. Ford and Lake had the jamming signal working through algorithms that kept them ahead of the broadcast from the satellites. The peculiar opacity of the area outlined by the satellites and the moon had faded. Straker chafed a bit under having to wait, but launch windows were specific and so they worked on reports, locating the rest of the resonance items and studying the three remaining skulls.

Kelsy awoke famished and rolled out of bed to drop a little further to the floor than she was expecting. She looked around. Oh. Hospital gown. Hospital bed, that explained the height issue. She chuckled to herself and ran her hands through her unruly mop of bed head hair before tiptoeing to the door and edging it open for a look. A very professional looking gentleman stood at ease to one side of the doorway. She smiled at him. 

“Bathroom?” she inquired, as there didn’t seem to be one attached to the room she was in. 

“I’ll escort you , Ms. O’Connell.” Kelsy turned her head to look at the slender, dark haired female who looked every bit as competent as the gentleman. 

“Thank you. And you are?”

“Ayshea Johnson,” she answered. “This way.”

“Uhm, backless and lacking underwear. Could we locate me at least another gown to cover the omissions?” Lt. Johnson smiled and stepped away, returning with the required item which Kelsy promptly donned so that she had better coverage. “Thank you. Shall we?”

Bathroom with shower. Whew! Kelsy availed herself of the amenities and returned to her room toweling her hair dry, having reversed the two gowns so the cleaner one was next to her skin. “My clothes?” she asked curiously.  
“Cleaned and returned to … their owner. We’ve taken the liberty of providing something with a better fit,” Ayshea answered. 

“Not polyester. Please, not polyester.”

Ayshea did laugh then, Kelsy seemed so emphatic about her dislike. “No. Probably cotton.”

“Good. Thank you. Someone will bring them to me?”

“After you’ve seen Dr. Jackson, Ms. O’Connell.”

“And he’s who?”

“I am Dr. Jackson,” the man in question introduced himself having cat-footed up while Kelsy and Lt. Johnson were talking. 

Neither woman reacted abruptly. Kelsy turned her amber eyes on the slender security man and smiled. “Romania?”

“Very close, Miss O’Connell. You have a very good ear.”

“Why thank you, Dr. Jackson. I try.” She turned up the wattage on the smile. “And what are we going to talk about?” She moved into the room and hopped up on the bed, making herself comfortable for what she suspected would not be a comfortable conversation. 

“Your abilities. Who you are. Where you come from. Why you are here. What you are planning on doing here,” he answered her.

“That’s certainly comprehensive. Let me think. Where do I begin. How about, where I should be…”

Two hours later, Dr. Jackson emerged from the room looking more than usually thoughtful. Both guards, who had relieved the previous ones, wondered about that look, certain that it did not bode well. Dr. Jackson’s report joined the background check on Straker’s desk. 

Ed looked over the report and frowned. This was not like Dr. Jackson. Report in hand, he went and found the doctor in Jackson’s office. Behind closed doors they discussed the doctor’s findings and his analysis. Informed that the report was unacceptable as it was, Jackson took it back. He advised his commanding officer that given the data he could come to no other conclusion than the one he had. If Straker wished to prove otherwise, he would have to deal with Ms. O’Connell directly. If he noticed the slight blush coloring Straker’s pale face, he declined to say anything.

Kelsy slept and ate and slept again until she was as rested as she could get. The clothes showed up, she tried them on and was satisfied although she presumed Ed had nothing to do with the choice. Sooner or later, he would have to deal with her. At least, she thought he would. What if… she wasn’t even sure of the ‘what if’ here. It was another 15 years before her mentor would be available to help her out. Damn. So, Kelsy practiced a patience she didn’t feel and waited for Straker to come to her. 

The window for launch came open and one of the SHADO shuttles leaped from its launch pad to the sky. The Shadair and the Sky units had maintained suborbital flights to block the broadcasts. The shuttle achieved space and then went after the satellites. Two shots and they were history. The shuttle headed on to the Moon to deliver supplies. Shadair and Sky 2 were ordered back to base leaving the sky clear of alien interference. 

Two transatlantic flights landed with strange greenish glowing glop on the fuselage and wings. Both had been in the area of the satellite orbits. The glop washed away when high powered water hit it, sliding down the side of the airplane to the ground and then swirling away into the labyrinth of drainage pipes beneath the tarmac. 

SHADO HQ was relieved that the threat, even if incomprehensible to them, was over. Straker, no other issues to compel his attention, went to deal with Kelsy O’Connell. She was waiting for him, neatly dressed in a button down white shirt, black slacks and soft leather flats, her hair pulled up in a knot on her head, curls escaping the knot and falling around her face. She smiled as he entered the room and it was a struggle not to smile back. 

“Miss O’Connell, or whatever your name is.”

Her eyes sparked at that. “Kelsy Anita O’Connell, Commander. Same as it was when we met. What bit you in the ass?” He dropped the file on the table and watched as she opened and leafed through it. She looked up, not angry, just amused. “So?”

He did snort then. “You’re not Kelsy O’Connell. You’ve lied to me. I don’t know who you are and don’t want to do so. You’ve harmed none of my people //just ripped my heart out, but I’m used to it// so you’ll be let go, as soon as you drink your coffee.” He nodded to the cup that sat in front of her cooling.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she answered him, her voice soft, her gaze wary. Damn the man. 

“Then you’ll take the drug some other way and be out of here.” He turned his back on her and headed to the door. He’d forgotten how swift and how strong she was.

Kelsy grabbed Ed’s arm, whirled him around and slammed his back into the wall next to the door, pinning him there with her hands pressed against the wall to either side of him. The amber eyes were now bright and angry as she searched his face, their bodies touching almost intimately. “You dare. You flaming idiot. Yeah, I’m ten right now. I’m in Cairo falling in love for the first time with a stele. I told you about that. I’m not the Kelsy that’s learning Chinese from her grandmother and hieroglyphics from her father, Richard. But if you think for one moment that I … “ 

Her voice caught and she gave an odd look, thought not directly at him. “That I didn’t mean exactly what I said, and that all this was … a … game …” She took a shaky breath and leaned against him as though her knees were giving out. “I love you, Ed Straker.” 

She was gone leaving only her clothing behind. No alarms sounded. Silence. He gathered her shirt into a wad and buried his face in it. He would remember her smell on them forever.


	19. October 30, 2005     Deep in the Sahara

Kelsy lay on her back in the cold sand staring up at the stars. “Fuck!” she said loudly. It echoed faintly back at her. She sat up and grimaced. “What is it about time travel and naked?” she asked the desert night. 

She stared up at the stars like diamond fire in the night sky. None of them pulsed red. This was good. She shivered in the cold. Naked and desert night was not a good combination. Quickly she got to her feet and sketched a power design in the sand. She called upon her mentor to come to her aid. He would probably yell at her, but it was better than hypothermia. 

“Imhotep. Great master of magic and arcane lore. Your humble apprentice calls upon you in her hour of need.” Kelsy intoned in the silence. She added the words of the spell he had taught her for summoning and squatted down to wait.

Just as she was beginning to wonder if she’d done it wrong, the night was pierced by golden light from her design and Imhotep, impressive in a black aba over his usual Egyptian style short skirted loincloth. The light played over his clean limbs, impressive torso and tan skin making Kelsy almost wish that her first love and mentor wasn’t so abysmally besotted with his dead lover, Ankhsunamun. 

“Who dares?!” he demanded as he stepped out of the light toward her. His eyes traveled over the naked red head that was not on her knees in supplication before him. “Kelsy. Where have you been? Your father is frantic,” he greeted her in a more reasonable voice as she rose from the sand and bowed to him.

“Hi, tall, dark, loincloth man,” she said with a laugh before continuing to a more appropriate greeting for a 3000 year old mentor. “Greetings, oh great and puissant mentor, High Priest of Rah, Imhotep of Ancient Egypt.”

Imhotep made an impatient sound as he looked her over again. “Why are you naked in the middle of the desert? “ he asked as he handed her his billowing aba. 

“Time travel and clothing don’t mix?” she tried as an answer. “OK. Apparently someone tried to dispose of me and got it wrong. I don’t know if the clothing thing is just what happens or if there was a reason for it. Thank you for the cloak; I was freezin’ my tits off here.” She smiled brightly. “And I just met someone who can appreciate them.”

“Indeed?” It wasn’t that Imhotep didn’t appreciate Kelsy’s beauty; he simply was in love with someone else. Besides, Kelsy was Rick O’Connell’s great granddaughter. The old man would kill him for a third time if he laid a finger on the red head.   
“Yeah.” Kelsy’s smile beamed at her memories of Ed. “I’ll tell you all about it ... Oh, shit! Skulls! Five of them. They were used in 1985 to try to … I’m not sure exactly what was being tried. I suspect it backfired a bit.”

“You want to tell me here,” he asked blandly.

“Yeah ... no! Cold, in spite of the aba, and hungry. Can you get us back to where you were?”

“Of course.” Imhotep took her hand and gestured. They were lifted into a whirlwind of sand that carried to the outskirts of Cairo and set them gently down. He raised a hand to summon a taxi. As it was only about 7:30pm, a taxi appeared and took them to the specified very expensive hotel. 

“Mmm. That’s what I like about you mentor, you always do things right.” Nor was she surprised to find a bag in Imhotep’s hotel room filled with a selection of her clothing. “Thank you!” Kelsy adjourned to the bathroom to wash off the sand and pull on her clothing. She reappeared in khaki pants with lots of pockets, a blue work shirt over a white undershirt and her favorite work boots. “I feel human again,” she announced as she scrunched her hair in her hands to enhance the curl. Not that it really needed encouragement to curl around her face and shoulders.

Dinner arrived a few minutes later. Kelsy explained what had happened as she ate. “So, someone was trying to open a gate. Very sophisticated for the time.”

“It did not succeed …”

“Kelsy looked around the room and back to her mentor. “Kinda obvious. The world would be horrid if it had.”

“Not necessarily. There are those strong enough to close a gate once opened. Although perhaps not enough to send the one called back,” he admitted. Imhotep regarded his protégé with concern. “You are certain about the skulls?”

“Yep. We crunched the lapis and the obsidian ones. The rose quartz, milky jade and the red crystal were still intact. That was really odd finding the red one as well as the obsidian. Shouldn’t the two of them over ride the others? Wouldn’t it have been power, anger and lust? Pretty much in that order?”

“Only the two of you …”

“Overwhelmingly,” she agreed.


	20. Foster and FitzHardin

Paul Foster, reviewing the tapes for the fifth time of Kelsy O’Connell’s disappearance from their interview room was again struck by the bleak look on the face of his commanding officer as he retrieved the clothing Kelsy had worn. Paul knew that Straker had essentially sacrificed his family life for the safety of the world and had frequently thought that the man should have known better, played the field for fun and left ties that bind to people who could afford them. 

Now, watching the interplay between the two, seeing the flicker of hope, of caring on Straker’s face as Kelsy confronted him Paul saw a side of his boss few people did. The stickler had a human side, one that hurt as deeply as the rest of them. Watching the reactions, he saw the underlying pain that Straker hid from all of them. Damn. No wonder Straker had given him a second chance after the aliens brainwashed him, and again when the evidence against him as traitor was so convincing, if coincidental and circumstantial. 

Paul turned the tape off. He still couldn’t figure out how the woman had vanished. There was no mechanism to be seen, just the pain of a man losing someone he loved deeply. Paul took the tape back to security, reported that he had found nothing to indicate alien involvement unless they’d learned how to do magic. It was nearly noon, so he took off to lunch. 

Half-way through a solitary meal, he stopped reading through the daily reports from the studio, picked up the phone and dialed a number he’d long since memorized. 

“This is FitzHardin,” the familiar voice answered.

“Hi, Fitz.”

There was a pause and then MayBelle FitzHardin said hello in a much friendlier tone. “Don’t tell me you have a project you’d like to collaborate on,” she teased.

“Not today. Fitz, are you free for dinner?” A part of his brain, occupied with starlets and models, was wondering at this turn of events. The rest of it was aware that when the overwhelming urge to indulge in sex hit the installation beneath his office floor, there was not one woman there he wanted. When he had a chance to think about it, instead of just reacting, Fitz had come to mind. The assistant head of Paragon-Paradise Pictures was not his usual fare. Standing almost as slightly taller than he and outweighing him by about twenty pounds, Fitz was a power to be reckoned with in European film making. He’d also seen a softer side to her a while back when he was recovering from losing several men under his command.

“Free? No. I’m very expensive,” she shot back with a smile in her voice. “However, if you’re asking whether I’ve any appointments or invitations for the evening, no, I don’t. I would be delighted to have dinner with you. Where and when?”

He named a place and time, wondering if he was an idiot for even thinking a woman like Fitz would look at him as anything more than a friend. It was probably a good thing to keep his ego from expanding that he didn’t know just how much Fitz liked him.

“I’ll see you there. “ There was a pause. “Paul?”

“Uhm … yes. I’ll call if anything comes up. See you tonight.” As he settled the receiver in its cradle, he wondered if he’d find something to come up. No. Fitz didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. He just hoped the aliens continued to be silent for another few hours.

Paul tried very hard not to drop his jaw when Fitz entered the restaurant. The first thing he noticed was just how well silk clung to every voluptuous curve of her very fit body. Then he took in the fall of curls from a sort of Grecian up sweep and the lack of the ever present harlequin style glasses. She met his stare with a broad smile as she walked over to the table. Paul stood as the waiter seated his companion. 

“You like the dress?” she asked, noting the admiration in his eyes.

“The dress, the woman in it and the mind that put it all together. One question, why don’t you ever hit the red carpet this way?”

“Can you imagine what the actual stars of the movie would do if I did?” Her tone invited him to enjoy the mental vision of very temperamental actors being upstaged by a mere assistant producer.

“Yes,” he nodded his understanding. “And I’d love to see it happen, just once. Say the next time we go to the same red carpet affair.”

“Are you flattering me?”

“No. But just once, I’d like to have the most intriguing woman there on my arm, instead of admiring her from afar.” Where the hell did that come from? But it was true. Fitz was his equal, as far as production went, in every way. Probably his better, if truth be told. Of course, she did concentrate all her time on what she did, rather than split it between the studio and SHADO. 

“Careful, Paul Foster, or you’ll decide you do more than like me.” Her deep chocolate gaze met his. “I warn you, I play for keeps and I am one jealous bitch.”

He raised his glass in salute. “I think I might just like the way you get jealous,” he told her, surprised to find that he meant it. Having a woman of MayBelle’s stature, and he wasn’t just referring to her height, be jealous of his affections sounded invigorating, challenging; as did the prospect of keeping her attention. MayBelle had spent a lot of time putting together a persona that went through men like popcorn. “Here’s to … seeing if a friendship might be something more.”

Fitz smiled and he felt a reaction run through him that warmed and scared him both. They’d have to be careful. Fitz as a target of the opposition threw a chill in behind that warmth that almost decided him to take another course of action. Still, gazing at her was more than pleasant tonight. He didn’t want someone to bed and forget; he wanted to … be loved.


	21. July 1985  Ford's Secret

“Keith, you’ve been studying those things for a month,” Virginia Lake noted. 

“And I haven’t really figured out anything except that they’re exceptionally pure samples of crystal, exquisitely carved and completely not responding to anything individually.” He sat back with a sigh, running his fingers over the smooth surface of the full sized rose quartz skull. It was a thing of beauty. He met Col. Lake’s cool blue-gray gaze and was surprised to see an expression he’d never seen there before. Keith colored slightly and looked away. Col. Lake was his superior, held an impressive array of invention copyrights and a Ph.D. 

Thus he was surprised as she stopped behind him, bent down and whispered in his ear. His color rose further as he turned to meet her eyes. His breath caught in his throat as he realized just how enticingly close her lips were. Libido overruled brain for a moment and he discovered just how soft, pliable and tasty those lips were. They broke off for a moment, Virginia settled neatly in Keith’s lap, his arms firmly around her and holding her close. 

“Oh,” she said softly. “My.” She looked up, eyes heavy lidded and hazy as the tip of her tongue played across her lips. “Keith Ford … I never suspected …”

He shrugged slightly. “You … uhm … have a reputation for liking bad boys,” he pointed out gently. Right now, he felt like an extremely bad boy; only that wasn’t quite right. Boy was not the right term at all. He took a chance and kissed her again, boldly, persistently, positively. 

They were both breathless and a bit rumpled when the kiss ended. “This is not the place …”

“No,” Keith agreed. “But I am off shift,” he added, mischief lighting his dark eyes. “Dinner?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I actually cook.”

“Do you? So do I. Your place is probably more comfortable. Mine’s filled with books and magazines,” he admitted regretfully.

That elicited a deep chuckle from Virginia. “Technical manuals,” she countered. “But mine are neatly in bookcases. Let’s go.”

As they walked to their respective vehicles, Virginia wondered if this was induced madness or just finally realizing that an intelligent, gentle man was capable of giving so much more than self-involved bad boys. They kissed once more before he saw her into her car. Damn. She didn’t want to let go. This should be an interesting evening. She checked her rear view mirror to make certain he hadn’t wandered off. Nope, there he was, right behind her. She laughed. Keith had her back. Why hadn’t she seen that before? 

Dinner was excellent with two cooks agreeing on most things. Dessert lapsed into intrigue. Much later, Virginia, feeling more relaxed than she could remember ever being, the tension of not having a companion and lover chased away by Keith’s considerable exertions on her behalf; and his. Who’d have thought that the master communications tech was such a considerate and … well … (deep sigh) thorough lover. Bad boys were off her list of things to have fun with forever. Keith was intelligent, kind, gentle, way more experienced than she would have thought, and demanding only on the level that she share in the fun. What a revelation. She snuggled back against him and drifted off to sleep, the nasty alien dreams held at bay by the warm body behind her. 

Hearing her breathing slow and deep, Keith lifted his head to look at her. Such a delicate profile and such a completely passionate lover. Such a perfect target. His masters would be pleased. “Cthulhu ftagn,” he whispered in her ear and settled down to sleep.


	22. Epilogue

Ed Straker, CEO of Harlington-Straker studios, signed off on the last contract of the day, closed the folder and put it on top of the stack in his out box. He sat back and stretched feeling every one of his 71 or so years, or so it he thought. The clock showed 4pm. The sky was already softening toward deep velvet black behind the curtains on his single window. He looked out, remembering when the window had been a projection instead of real. Lights were already coming on in the distance.

“Miss Cleveland,” he called his secretary over the intercom.

“Yes, Mr. Straker?” came the reply.

“I’m leaving for the day.”

“Have a good evening , sir. I’ll see you in the morning. Mr. Foster has a 9am and Mr. Freeman a lunch appointment.”

“I’ll remember that. Thank you, Miss Cleveland. Have a good evening yourself.” He cut the line, collected the silver topped cane someone had given him as a joke a few years earlier and took the back door out of his office. He stopped as he stepped out of the building. It still felt strange to be able to leave that way.

He walked to his car, parked as far out as he could manage so that he had to walk and then stopped as he neared the still sleek bronze vehicle. Someone was reclining on the hood and windshield, long legs clad in khaki and the torso hugged by a blue work shirt. Hair and face were hidden by a broad brimmed hat.

“Good evening, Mr. Straker. I’m afraid your vehicle has been identified as an ancient burial ground and will have to be cleared by a professional archaeologist before you can move it.”

He recognized the teasing voice, the rich contralto tinged by laughter. He stood there, frozen, not knowing exactly how to react to the return of a woman he knew he loved, but had lost twenty years ago. “Kelsy?” Did he sound as bewildered as he felt?

She sat up, tipping the hat back on her head and slid off the car to walk over to him. She stopped short, frowning at his face. The sunglasses brought back long lost memories. “It’s you,” she said, sounding bemused. “Damn.” She reached out and removed the sunglasses so she could look into his eyes. “Hi. Aren’t you glad you know a professional archaeologist?”

His eyes searched her face. She hadn’t changed. But then, she wouldn’t. “It is you,” he said feeling a bit inane about the entire meeting. She stepped up to him then, ran her arms around his chest and kissed him. Sometime later, possibly because of the niggling teen voice that had suggested they get a room, they reluctantly pulled apart for some air. Ed looked over to where Foster was loading his kids into the SUV he drove. Paul grinned at him, nodded to Kelsy and closed the car door behind his youngest. 

“Sorry. The oldest hasn’t quite learned to not say the first thing that comes into her head,” he apologized for the young lady disappearing around the other side of the vehicle. “Miss O’Connell, isn’t it?”

“Yep. You’re … Foster?”

“Yes. Good evening.” He climbed into the driver’s seat admonishing someone to get buckled in and drove away leaving them in the gathering dusk.

“You’re really here.”

“I’m really here,” she agreed. 

“I’ve … I’m a little … old,” he tried to point out, recognizing that Kelsy was 35 to his 71; not that he looked his age, any more than a lot of people in their 70’s did these days. But being the honorable person he was, he really had to give the girl an out.

“You’re 71. You know what that lapis skull was all about?”

“No.”

“Long life, health and fertility. We didn’t just touch the thing, we wallowed in its remains. Besides, my first love is over 3000. What’s 71 compared to that?”

“Are you asking me to believe in Imhotep?” he asked gently.

“Oooh. You are good.” She rubbed against him in a most distracting manner and she knew it.

“Well, you’ll probably have to at least accept that he and I and my family all deal with him as exactly what we say he is.”

“Your family?” his voice sounded faint in his own ears. Of course, his hormones were talking in loud shouting tones about exactly what he should be doing instead of standing here trying to talk her out of what they both wanted to do.

“Yeah. Dad wants to meet you. Wants to make sure you’re up to my weight. I dunno, what d’you think?” Her thigh was just in the right place to discover exactly what his body thought, if not his mind. “That’s my Ed,” she said proudly.

“Kelsy … think about this …”

She pulled back slightly and met his look directly. “I have. I did. By the way, are you going to make an honest woman out of me or am I your concubine?”

“What?” He tried to sound outraged, but couldn’t. Both ideas had merit. She’d be his, regardless. Were concubines legal in England? And didn’t you have to have a wife to have a concubine? What the hell was he thinking?

“Wife or concubine? I think I’d prefer wife. That would make the kid legitimate,” she dropped the bombshell she was hoping would not send him dashing away from her.

“Kid … “ His mind made the connections. “You’re …pregnant?”

“Well, we did spend something like 72 hours not doing much of anything else and prevention never seemed to impinge on either of our consciousnesses … so, yeah. Pregnant. Not bad timing, actually. I’ve got half a dozen excavations to write up and neither the university nor my dad will let me back in the field until I’ve actually written them up.” She grinned at him. “Well, you aren’t yelling and you aren’t running … and there’s one other thing I need to tell you.” He did look a little shell shocked so she leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “I love you, Ed Straker.”

His response was perfect. The cane fell away as his arms went around her. “I’ve waited twenty years to tell you how much I love you, Kelsy O’Connell.” Their lips met and they spent a while renewing their acquaintance before he spoke again. “Marry me?”

“What took you so long?” she shot back with a laugh. “Of course!” She landed a light kiss on his lips. “By the way, what about …” she pointed up.

“Them? Gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, gone. Not a sign of them since 2000. Decommissioned in 2003. I am just a studio CEO with a yen for a flame haired archaeologist. What did you mean ‘It’s you’ earlier?” he asked as he settled her in the passenger seat.

“Oh. Mexico City, 1983. You were there. My Granddad Alex was found at the foot of the temple of Huitzlipotle-Quezalcoatl one morning, his heart cut out. Everyone thought it was a cult. But you were there,” she explained.

“Your grandfather wasn’t a victim. But there were indications that the people who killed him were. We were investigating. I am sorry.”

“So’m I. Alex was cool. So, dinner at your place?” Kelsy asked hopefully as they drove into the night. 

“Dinner at my favorite restaurant. Dessert at my place,” he answered, knowing he had found the one thing missing in his life. 

Fin


End file.
